I think my mom was jealous of me when I was growing up. This is a weird thing to say. My mom is beautiful, intelligent (incredibly intelligent, she was ambidextrous), and hardworking. She was that elegant trifecta that makes a person mysterious and interesting. And for whatever reason, she was envious of me.
Envy drives me insane. Mostly because no one arrives at where they are in life by sheer luck. I think there is some element of luck that plays into a person’s existence, but I think it’s mostly work. Some people may get a bit of an upper hand on the journey (good parents, good genes, etc) but that doesn’t necessarily guarantee the outcome of success. My ex boyfriend was the epitome of this lesson. He was dealt an incredible hand in the game of life (good looks, educated family, money, private school and Ivy League education) and still managed to royally fuck it up, completely torpedoing his life to a profoundly low and painful place.
I hate envy because it completely collapses the idea that a person has arrived at where they are in life through hard work. Instead it makes it seem as though said person had a magical little fairy come into their room at night and gift them all the success in the world. That’s not the reality. People are like an iceberg. You see the tops of them, their success, the nice things they own, but rarely do you see what’s underneath. Like the work ethic, the value system they built over time, the mistakes they made, or the immense pain of sacrifice they suffered.
I also think envy collapses relationships and growth, instead of opening us up. In the past I’ve been incredibly envious of Amal Clooney. I hated how she was so intellectual and fierce and successful at the same time. She did work that I would absolutely have loved to have done, and she succeeded in a way that my life didn’t really make the opportunity for me to. I spent a couple months smoking a lot of weed and thinking about how much my life felt like a failed attempt at living in comparison to hers, excerpts from her Vogue interviews flashing in my mind.
I’ve gotten over my envy though, and I’ve come to appreciate her existence. I realize if she hadn’t jolted me the way she had with her success, I wouldn’t be trying so hard to be better. Even from meager little pre-war Brooklyn apartment I’m still trying to assemble my life, to make it bloom to a better place, to evolve into a purer version of who I think I am.
I think the worst part about envy is it collapses relationships. People pull away, they can’t connect with you or see you as a person because their own alarm system is going off at a rapid fire rate. I hate that. I guess adulthood though is accepting that cycle. People cope with emotions differently, and at different points in our lives we are equipped with specific amounts of resilience that dictate what we can absorb and what must be spit out. Human connection is fragile, but it’s so important. Envy drew me closer to myself, but it can also feel like a small tear threatening to destroy the fabric.
a soft death 