"Jealousy always has been my cross, the weakness and woundedness in me that has most often caused me to feel ugly and unlovable, like the Bad Seed. I've had many years of recovery and therapy, years filled with intimate and devoted friendships, yet I still struggle. I know that when someone gets a big slice of pie, it doesn't mean there's less for me. In fact, I know that there isn't even a pie, that there's plenty to go around, enough food and love and air.
But I don't believe it for a second.
I secretely believe there's a pie. I will go to my grave brandishing a fork."
from Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott (New York: Riverhead Books, 2007, p. 110.
I adore Anne Lamott -- I adore her writing, and I'm grateful that she shares her life through her books. I daresay that she and I would be light years apart on issues of faith, but I respect her thoughtful approach and the journey she's taken to arrive at the place she finds comfortable in. Most of all, I appreciate her willingness to expose herself, to lay out the wormy, uncomfortable, messy bits of her personality, when most of us (myself included) would rather hide them, pretend they don't exist.
But this passage on jealousy touched a real chord in me -- mostly because I always feel so awful about my moments of envy, how I feel so worthless and ugly next to folks I admire. Think about that. I admire them, I love what they do, what they produce, what they put out in the world, and I feel like such a misfit, such a loser, that I just wallow in jealousy. Why can't I do that? Why don't I have any luck?
Where the heck is my slice of pie?
Sometimes, I grip my fork with such intensity that I am unable to do anything else.
And I don't know if I see a solution here, a way out. Anne Lamott writes:
"I grew up and developed some of the skills and wisdom that life gives us. I learned to take myself less seriously, and this helped me panic less. I acquired a little more depth, after seeing enough of life's fluctuations to know that you come through. And still I get jealous."
So, maybe this jealousy is just something hardwired into us, part of the inevitable human condition.
But I still think it wouldn't hurt me to look ahead to 2008, to this next year, and see if I can't develop some skills and wisdom, see if I can't take myself just a little less seriously. If I learned anything in 2007, it's that Anne Lamott is right -- despite life's fluctuations, we do come through.
Okay, I'll admit it -- I wish that 2008 would be the Year of the Pie for me. I wish The Universe would just send on over a big ole slab of pie, just for me. My favourite kind (cherry). Topped with ice cream (preferably Mapleton's Organic).
But what I'm going to try doing this year, instead of obsessing about the pie, is to spend this year celebrating the people I admire and love and count as my friends, and not worrying about why they seem to have a slice of pie when my plate is empty. I'm going to work on putting down that fork, maybe not always, but at least some of the time.
This year, I don't want to dwell on the pie.
Oh, okay, well, maybe just a little:
interesting, and interesting that it's always that "the grass is greener" thing. I'm finding that no matter where we are in life it is hard not to look at something someone else has or does or thinks or...being content with what we have and are is hard to find but can be a lovely place to be.
Posted by: karen | January 09, 2008 at 05:27 PM