For the past week or so, I’ve been envious of nearly everyone.
A friend posts on social media that they’re overwhelmed at work? At least they have a job that commands some respect and salary. A woman telling her story in a podcast meant to enlighten and support? Oh, yeah, it must be nice to have a healthy body that you can push to do a 100 mile bike ride. Temperatures below zero? Well, most of the time you don’t hate where you live; you may even have chosen to live there.
And of course, every time I step on the sharp tines of envy, the rake handle of shame rises to smack me in the face. Because I know, I know envy is a “bad” emotion. I know it only hurts the person feeling it. I know those people have their suffering and challenges and grief, too. What I value: empathy, support, largeness of spirit, generosity, humor, openness. Not capitalist success. Not stepping on others to climb any ladder. Not bitterness. Not envy.
But the first rule of therapy club is: you can’t control your feelings. Which means you’re allowed to have those feelings, to sit with them, to let them wash over you, to notice them. Acting on them is something else, which is why only my best friend of 30+ years and my husband generally get to hear about my copious envy. Well, until now. Now all of you get to hear about it, too.
It’s so much easier now for my envy monster (let’s call him Sean, after the sharp-edged freckled kid I disliked in grade school) to be fed. The virtual world in which we live, from social media to podcasts to news, is like a smorgasbord for Sean. Sean, in his striped t-shirt and frayed jeans, his face in a permanent sneer, always a cutting remark for those luckier than him. All angles, skinny and half-wild, his father having abandoned the family, rusted cars on blocks in his front yard, which is across from the dump, throwing rocks from his concrete stoop.
Come to think of it, in retrospect, I feel a little sorry for Sean, or at least the combination of the real kid and the envy monster I’ve imagined here.
Oh, yeah. The second rule of therapy club: offer yourself the same compassion, sympathy, and understanding you would offer a friend.
Dear self—I’m sorry you’re feeling like what you do is so worthless. I’m sorry you live with constant pain and fatigue, that you fear warming weather because your allergies will rebloom and bring sinus headaches and worse tinnitus and more fatigue. I’m sorry you’re yearning for the open skies, traffic-less streets, and earnest friendliness of your Midwestern childhood, even if the you who went back there would not be the same you who left it. I’m sorry you don’t have some of the things you really want, and that those lacks contribute to self-judgment, loneliness, and yes—envy.
I won’t lie and tell you it’s all going to be ok. I won’t offer any more bits of advice, like writing a gratitude journal, and pretend that will solve everything. What I can say with confidence is: you are not alone. Other humans have felt as you feel. You are a normal human, and most importantly, you don’t have to feel only happy things in order to be worthy. Messed up, full of regrets and yearnings and envy, you’re a bag of every flavor beans just like the rest of us.
Don’t believe me? Read Ellen Bass’ poem “Indigo”:
…I’m so jealous.
As I often am. It’s a kind of obsession.
I want him to have been my child’s father.
I want to have married a man who wanted
to be in a body…
So she didn’t get a father who’d sling her
onto his shoulder. And so much else she didn’t get.
I’ve cried most of my life over that…
See? Now take a slow, deep breath, and go—even if only for part of a second—to the most beautiful, peaceful place you can remember or imagine. Mine: infinite sky, wind undulating the tall grasses, a couple of horses standing nearby, ears forward.
“And of course, every time I step on the sharp tines of envy, the rake handle of shame rises to smack me in the face.” You so slayed me with that sentence. And pierced my pretensions. Wonderful essay, Katie.
"...every time I step on the sharp tines of envy, the rake handle of shame rises to smack me in the face." Katie!!! ❤️