Jealousy

Today‘s dress is vintage! sadly it’s too tight on me. I can get it zipped, with help, but then can barely breathe. Please buy it if you like it! I’m guessing it’s a 26 waist but I have to double check. I’m back in NYC after almost a week away. It was a busy and interesting trip, full of time with various family members. If you read this blog regularly, you’ll know that i‘m going through a transition in my life. It’s hard work and I often feel defeated. I’ve learned in my many 12 step meetings and elsewhere that it’s important to practice gratitude. That I have a lot to be thankful for, and I do. I am very grateful for my apartment, for example. That I have a safe and warm place to return to. But after spending many days with relatives who have done extremely well financially, I noticed some jealousy started creeping up. It was uncomfortable. The questions started popping up in my mind. The theme was “why not me?” I wondered who had a better life. Who was happier. Who this and who that. My cousin told me yesterday how both his kids went to Harvard. they are both excelling in their careers. I went to a good enough school, but then I got fired from or quit every job. I can say it was mental health problems, but was it more than that? I could wish for a brain that would have gotten me into Harvard and probably launched a successful career afterwards. I’d like to be grateful for the brain I do have, but mostly I’m exhausted by it. It feels like my mind and my emotions are constantly at war. I question every decision and when I do make decisions, I often regret them later. But it’s intimidating to be part of a family full off successful people and feel like I’m the one who is failing. I don’t have the career, the partner, the money, the huge home. I do have closets full of dresses. but I must have chosen this life. or it was chosen for me. And it’s not a bad life by any means, but this year it’s felt painful to not have the life I’d like. And that means knowing and loving myself. And ive been fighting it. I just didn’t want to do that work. It felt incredibly uncomfortable to me. It still does. It feels like an identity crisis. I often write in my journal, who am I? What am I doing? What should I be doing? And then a few more who am i’s. i often feel like I just don’t belong in my immediate family or my larger family. I’ve blocked out of forgotten many memories. Sometimes I’m reminded of my very unpleasant behavior throughout the years. Then I feel bad and ashamed. i think about the trauma and sadness by family has been through and how I’m connected to it. Does it live on through me? What do I do with it? I ask the personal questions. I ask about death and mental illness. Two of the more challenging relatives I had died young. Will that happen to me? jealousy is a bad feeling. It’s when my life feels unfair and I wish I had someone else’s life. But do I wish that? And doesn’t God know what’s going to happen anyways? I could write my memoir and make some money and be perfectly ok. Or not. I could live a long healthy life. Or not. I could meet the love of my life. Or not. Lately I don’t think I’ll have children. I don’t think it’s for me. But I’m leaving that up to God. But I won’t be using science to intervene. I also don’t like the idea of bringing a person into the world who will most likely suffer from the same things I have. so I’m sorry for the dark post today, but I felt I had to get it off my chest and maybe find some relief. It’s really difficult to have all this inside me. I’m off to have lunch with a very interesting person at a vegan cafe.