Present Over Perfect

down through the disdain to see what was underneath, and I
wasn’t surprised, at this point, to find pure envy.
I wanted to rest and play. I wanted to connect and ask
for help, and sometimes be fragile and sometimes just stop
entirely. I wanted to listen to my own body and spirit instead
of feeling like I was on a speeding train that left the station a
long time ago and wasn’t stopping anytime soon.
It seems to me like most of us were taught that jealousy
is bad, and so when we feel it, we should push it away from
ourselves as quickly as possible, get rid of it fast. But I’m
learning that envy can be an extremely useful tool to
demonstrate our desires, especially the ones we haven’t yet
allowed ourselves to feel, and so I committed to learning
from my jealousy toward her. I circled it, picked it up,
turned it in my hand like a prism. What are you? I asked.
What do you have to teach me?
When I allowed myself to tiptoe past the disdain, past the
envy, what I found was longing. I was longing for a life that
felt light, right-sized for my strengths and limitations. This
was never about her. This was about me.
So I set to work on making my life look more like my
longings, and along that path, I found my jealousy
dissipating.
And one of the ways I know that I have reached a
celebration point along this journey? I’m no longer jealous
of my friend, or of any friend who seems to author her life
and walk it out at a pace that works for her. Because these
days I author my own pace and life, and I celebrate