Spin Cycle: Jealousy

It's Not Easy Seeing Green

Jealousy? Even writing the word makes me think of dark evil characters, usually women, like Cinderella's stepmother, or the queen who was so jealous of Snow White. Of course men get jealous too, but why is it we so often see it illustrated in the movies or on TV by women, pulling each other's hair and clawing at one another in some over-the-top cat fight?

I don't think of myself as a jealous person, not in any big way. I have frequent little bouts of it certainly, as in:

                "Oh, I wish I'd had such a great marriage, like them,"
                 or,

                 "How come my ass doesn't look like that in a pair of jeans?"
                 and, 
        
                 "Oh my God, she just inherited a million dollars! Why can't I
                   inherit a million dollars (no lie, I know two people this
                   happened to in the last few years)?"

But in general, it just seems to me to be one of those negative emotions that sucks all the life out of the person feeling it. I don't have time for that.

Maybe this is because I grew up in the shadow of a sister who was frequently jealous. Of everything and everybody, me included. I don't want it to sound like some ego trip because, believe me, she had nothing to be jealous of. She was pretty and clever and lots of fun.

But that's the point. When you're a jealous person, it really isn't about the other people. It's about your own dissatisfaction with yourself (oh hell, I sound like some low rent shrink. That'll be $100 please).

But I'm not kidding. It didn't matter what I did or what I had; my sister was convinced it was better than her's. In her eyes, my parents loved me more. I was better looking. I got better grades. And on. And on.

Sometimes it seriously pissed me off. How dare she assume things came easily to me, that I didn't work for them?

"I knew you'd have a boy," she said when I gave birth to First-Born Son after she'd had two daughters.

Then, after Daughter #1 was born, this: "Of course you'd have a son and a daughter. The Perfect Family."

How's that for warm and fuzzy?

Don't take this the wrong way. I love my sister. I wish we could be closer. But I've learned to see that the distance between us has very little to do with anything real or rational.

Maybe her life the first 19 months was all chocolate milk and golden pacifiers, until I came along. Maybe it went downhill after that. I'm not sure there's anything I can do to fix it. I'm tired of it.

Jealousy's exhausting. For everyone it touches. I repeat, I have no time for it.

But man, when I hear women talk about how close they are to their sisters, I really wish it was me.


Go check out Sprite's Keeper for more Spins on Jealousy. But only if you promise you won't think they're so much better than mine...

Comments

[Jan]

I love this post. Love love love love love it.

"[I]t just seems to me to be one of those negative emotions that sucks all the life out of the person feeling it. I don't have time for that."

Beautifully put - you do NOT sound like a low-rent shrink. You sound like a very smart woman.

[Sprite's Keeper]

AMEN! My sister and I are 21 months apart and there was a lot of jealousy back then when one of us did something or the other got something. I think it's par for the course when you're close in age, but usually people outgrow that. I know we did.
Great Spin! Love it! You're linked!

[Joanie M]

Great Spin, Maureen! My sister was jealous that I got big boobs when they came in and hers were always small! LOL And I just recently learned about this! And I was jealous that she was the skinny sister and I had an ass (to go with the bog boobs... at least I was balanced!)

[Mama Badger]

Wow, chocolate milk and golden pacifyer's huh? She did have it good. I think some people are just hard wired to be unhappy with whatever they have. Before you even came along, I bet your sister was screaming when your Mom pet the cat, too. It's not worth the energy to try and rationalize it.

Great spin.

[Nancy McDonnell]

I remember one Christmas my only brother (4 years older) standing up and saying "You always like her more!" and then left.

We all sat there gape mouthed. AND we were in our 30's! A little childish at that point in our lives!

But we've worked through it. But the green goddess of envy or jealousy has a grip at one time or another on everyone. Some more than others. Sad ins't it?

But I too wish my ass looked as good in jeans as some of these bitches in the grocery....
:-)

Thanks for the post. Well said.

[LPC]

Nice post. My brother is a psychoanalyst. At one point in his training he said he was angry at me for something I did when I was 8. I said to him, "I was 8." That was pretty much that. Too bad your sister can't do the same.

[Lynn from For Love or Funny]

So true. I'd be heartbroken if one of my kids felt jealous of the other.

[Jenn @ Juggling Life]

I know exactly what you mean. My sister was jealous of me her entire life--in adulthood I realized it was a manifestation of her borderline personality disorder, but I would have loved to have a sister that was also a friend.

[Pseudo]

Great spin. I could relate to everything you wrote.

[Camille]

Thanks for a good perspective. Jealousy IS draining, isn't it?