Jealousy.  Envy.  It eats at your soul and is an emotion that is difficult to temper.  It may start off as an “I wish I had…” and become greed.  Or “If only I was like…” and cause poor self-esteem.  Everyone has bouts of jealousy, everyday.  Facebookers and celebrity-philes know jealousy acutely.  But whether it’s sighing over a dress we see online or looking at someone’s life and thinking it’s perfect, we all are bound to make comparisons and end up going crazy.

I’ve never dealt with jealousy well and try to weed it out.  Starting with Jackie in 7th grade, then Merry, Bobbie and Chris from sophomore year of high school, up to my college friends that are now far away, all my close friendships have been long-distance.  Because of these experiences and then the 4 years of long-distance with Michael, I was never able to grease relationships with ordinary small chit-chat or quick get-togethers.  You can’t just go out for dinner and drinks and watch a movie and take years before the really dirty stuff comes out.  For lack of face time, you talk and talk and talk.  And the uglier sides come to the surface quickly.  EVERYONE has ugly secrets, even people who seem perfectly happy and content.  One of my friends told me something awesome that I never forgot “You don’t want anyone else’s pain,” which reminds me of that (African? Indian?) tale.  It says if everyone put their life in a pot, and had their choice of which to take back, almost everyone would choose their same life.  There is nothing to envy.  We all have our own mix of struggles.  

But a lot of people do get jealous.  I have lost whole friendships because someone (even someone who knows my dirty secrets!) turns green.  Keeping that emotion in your heart is ugly and destructive, mostly to the person who has it.  This topic of jealousy and the times I’ve been jealous bubbled up for me this week because a couple people have been jealous of me.  Or I will share a joyful thing and hear defensive competitiveness, the “I have an amazing life too” refrain.  This refrain becomes impossible to sustain if we share BOTH the joys and difficulties.  But jealousy is the enemy of sharing.  Jealousy is the sister of stereotypes, assumptions, and pigeon-holing.  An example:  once I was jealous of someone to the point of not wanting to hang out with them, despite the fact that we had much in common.  People thought we should be best friends, but I thought this person was perfect.  They were always peaceful and kind, where sometimes I felt like a regular old sour-puss in a rocking chair, always being overly honest and critical of others.  I pigeon-holed them as a simplistic person who had never had anything bad happen to them.  I idolized them.  My husband, friends, parents-in-law admired this person’s joy and didn’t see what was wrong with me.  Then in a heart-to-heart talk, I found out something horrible they struggle with.  The facade melted away and all I was left with was a deeply complex picture of a mostly-wonderful person.

That was probably the worst case of jealousy I’ve ever had and it felt like a sickness and prevented me from having a dear friend.  The flip-side to rarely being jealous is that you can sometimes seem boastful.  If you don’t get jealous very much, you aren’t aware of the kind of phrases that might make people turn green.  When Michael first met me he thought I bragged a lot because I would just share exciting things with no provocation or awareness that other people might feel bad by comparison.  Now he tells me he came to realize that it’s just joy.  And it’s true…good things in life are precarious.  So I post a lot of pictures on Facebook of things that make me all gooey with delight…places I’ve been to, fun things we get to do, interesting videos that make me think, funny stories, etc.  These things are definite blessings that I do not take for granted.  Yesterday I dog-sat and the dog was so excited to see me that he grabbed his favorite stuffed chicken and pranced for 15 minutes around the room.  I didn’t sit in a corner and think, “Why is this freaking dog so happy and showing off?”  Instead I clapped and cooed over him and said, “Wow, that’s an awesome chicken!” and he licked my arm and was happy.  People we can prance with like dogs and also come to during the difficult times become life-long kindred spirits. We don’t get jealous of each other.  But we also know that we are only mostly-wonderful.

Every time I feel “the green” creeping up…whenever I feel that little tug of “I wish” or “If only” or “Look at him/her,” I ask God for strength to not be jealous.  I throw my life in the pot, take it back out again and dust it off. Even if I just see a very physically attractive person or someone who is extremely bubbly and cheerful, in which case “the green” might be a momentary flash. Sometimes it is much more sinister and deep-rooted like a weed.  I choose my life again, which might not look perfect, but it is mine.  It is unique and damaged and beautiful and okay. 

January’s issue of “Real Simple” had THE BEST explanation of how to help someone who’s had a miscarriage.  It was so dead-on it made me and Michael both cry.  YES we both said.  DUH was another word.  But something that seems obvious now would not have been obvious a few years ago before we started trying to get pregnant.  It was not obvious to us passionate, liberal pro-choicers that we would call a 7 week-old fetus “child” and “baby” at such an early stage.  It was not obvious to my scientific mind how something that was JUST a small collection of cells, JUST developing, JUST there would be…important isn’t right.  Consuming?  Magnificent?  Those words come close.  It was pure joy and maybe that’s one reason pregnant moms have that special glow.

This joy and surprise is probably no different from that of other expecting parents, but I think for people who try to have children for multiple years, it is well-earned.  When I was pregnant there were still the estrogen patches and pill cocktails, but no more multiple daily self-injections.  No more daily blood tests.  No more scheduled surgeries, alternative medicine, no more telling people, “Nope, not yet, we’re still trying!”  The joy was inseparable from relief and then…the unexpected and yet completely normal thing that happens to 25% of pregnancies happened.

I will get to the “Real Simple” but first, I have to thank all those people who GOT it.  Thank you to the dad who lost his grown-up daughter and still sent me messages and hugged me every time he saw me.  The friends who let me take care of their kids day and in and day out and weren’t worried this childless person would go bat-shit crazy on them.  Thank you to the countless women who took me out for lunch and said “me too.”  The women who delivered food to my home and did grocery runs and made sure I was doing normal things like laundry and drinking water.  The women who prayed and cried with me over the phone.  The women that went out for margaritas with me and helped take my mind off it for a night.  The women who said “call me even if it’s in the middle of the night” and meant it.  The many friends who just TALKED about it and weren’t scared to talk about it.  The friends who were with me for every hospital visit.  Michael and I went through this in separate countries, and in many ways are still processing this loss. But we didn’t and don’t have to do it alone.  I’ve been trying to get up the courage to write about the miscarriage in a holistic way.  As the “due date” May 5th approaches, I am full of loss but also glad to have experienced such joy, and to be completely indebted to amazing people.  Thank you.

From “Real Simple”:

Q.  A few people close to me have recently suffered miscarriages. I feel as though I never know the right thing to say when the subject comes up in conversation. (Making it more awkward is the fact that I am the mother of a small child.) Should I broach the issue myself, to acknowledge the pain that my friends are going through, or stay quiet? B. Brown, Steilacoom, Washington 

Newman: Miscarriages are somehow the worst of both worlds: mortifyingly public and isolatingly private at the same time. When I lost a pregnancy a number of years ago, I felt totally alone in my sadness, even as I was aware that everybody in my life—friends, family, colleagues—knew about it. Most of us don’t have rituals in place to mourn that kind of terrible loss, and we should.

The kindest thing that you can do—and I say this from personal experience—is to treat your friend’s miscarriage the same way you would any other bereavement. Acknowledge it directly and compassionately. Send flowers, comfort food, or a card, or tell her in person, “I’m deeply sorry for your loss, and I’m here to listen if you ever need someone to talk to.” It might feel uncomfortable—and she might not want to discuss what happened, which is fine—but do it anyway.

You don’t need to worry that you’re reminding your friend of something painful; she is probably thinking of little else. And you’ll dispel that strange sense of shame—as if the event were an embarrassing gynecological issue or a personal failure and not a devastating heartbreak—felt by some women who have had miscarriages. Your job as a friend is to share the burden of sorrow. You can’t do that by looking the other way. You have to reach out.

There was a really loud buzz this morning at 8am.  First thought:  WTF?  It’s too early!  Second thought:  Oh, is that me?

Then I remembered being ambitious and setting my alarm despite going to bed at 1am last night.  Knowing I wouldn’t wake up, I set the alarm to the most annoying “bah-bah-bah” sound on volume level 10.  The truth is, nothing good ever happens in a day when I wake up late…so why do I fight waking up early?  Why did I always used to say I was a night-owl?

I blame college.  In high school and college, I was the night-owl queen.  Like pulled so many all-nighters that “all-nighter” became my nickname and I started hallucinating once from too many in a row.  It’s cool to be a night owl!  But morning people?  Morning people are the crazy A-types that have no friends.  They probably knit and bake cookies before bedtime.  Or so we are led to believe.  It’s the same reason that I was really into high-heels.  I wore high-heels every day from freshman year of high school to a couple years after college.  And then foot injuries and chiropractors happened, and now you can’t pay me to wear 4-inch heels.  Glamorous?  No.  Healthy?  Yes.

Maybe this is a sign of getting older…or just wiser.  The two don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand, because we all know a lot of stupid 40-year olds.  But for whatever reason, I am now a morning person, waking up early whether I have a job or not or whether it’s a weekday or not.   It feels weird, but at the same time oddly comfortable.  I’ve only been awake for an hour and I’ve sold 3 books on Amazon, made coffee, done yoga, checked emails, read friends’ blogs, Facebooked…

This early bird characteristic doesn’t mean I won’t take a Mexican siesta at 4:00pm though ;)  I’m still getting used to the new me.

The past month has been amazing for me, which some people might be surprised to hear.  I think when you go through something difficult, it shatters you and you’re  ironically more open to the good things in life.  Some days are hard; especially when I’m tired I’ll burst into tears for an hour or so, like a quick thunderstorm.  I was talking to a friend from church yesterday who used to be a nurse, and she is a participant in a longitudinal study on stress.  When asked for the study what was the most stressful event in her life, she said hands down having a miscarriage.  I couldn’t agree more—-stressful on your emotions, your body, your spirit.  Yet despite all this (because of?) I’ve had extremely joyful days and am so grateful for being “split open.”

In just the past week:  

-One of the high schoolers who used to be in our youth group called me the second she landed at Tokyo airport and asked if I wanted to do dinner; we took a very long walk, ate Mexican and then went shopping.  So great to catch up with her.  

-Was named godmother to baby Claire, my favorite kid in the whole world (except for my other godchildren, Izzy & Hadrien!)  Such an honor.  Babysat her on multiple occasions and got to hear her wake up laughing and also wave and say “hi” to the koi at the park.

-Taught Middle School Sunday School and was amazed at how deep these kids were!  It was my first time teaching MS and I was SO nervous, but we had a great time!

-Had a sleepover at the Vans (complete with ConAir, wine and cheese) and went to DisneySea the morning after.  This was my FIRST Disney experience and it did not disappoint.  Saw my first real animatronics show.

-Had a fabulous, life-changing conversation with a friend.  Where you have several eureka moments and share secrets you can’t really tell anyone else and come to the conclusion, “Wow!  You too?!”

-Had a couple dinners at my place with girlfriends.  One of them was a cooking date which is like having Top Chef in your house…only we are not competitive!

-Walked around beautiful cemeteries and parks in this 60-degree weather (!!)

-Saw my first flamenco show in a very intimate performance.  It was AMAZING.  Now I want to study flamenco.

-Attended my last staff meeting and bawled like a baby.  Very grateful for the past two years.

-Had to apologize to a few people for something thoughtless I said.  This was very hard for me!

-Had several lunch dates and amazing conversations with church friends in general.  Lots of deep insights and belly-laughing.  

I’m listing the positive because there ARE those moments of very intense sadness and frustration.  But I don’t think I would have reached out and been this crazy-social had I not gone through the miscarriage.  And in doing so, I realize that this is my true nature…sometimes when you are married you adapt too much to the other person’s habits.  I get my energy from being with people and occasionally recharging with some journaling, collaging, cooking, downtime at home.  It’s good to figure out these things while Michael and I are apart!  Also, spending time with people is important no matter what mood you are in.  If you are open and real, people don’t care if you are slightly crabby or tired, etc.  Sometimes we don’t hang out with people because we want to present our best “face” or wait until all the conditions are perfect.  After the miscarriage, I just didn’t care.  I was a wreck physically and emotional and how I looked or how I felt didn’t matter.  And that allowed me to be open to all sorts of adventures and good times and I realized if other people are kindred spirits, they don’t care either.  Maybe this is a simple revelation, but it’s taken me a long time to get it and I’m very grateful for this reawakening.

After rinsing off, I don’t want to go

Back to sleep,

Afraid I’ll wake up and not remember

You aren’t there anymore

And for one brief moment

Before the truth sours my mouth,

You will flutter above:

A parenthetical hope, a future,

a love I’ve lived out dearly in

my flesh,

This blood.