Hey Jealousy

jealousy
Pronunciation: \ˈje-lə-sē\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural jeal·ou·sies
Date: 13th century
1 : a jealous disposition, attitude, or feeling
2 : zealous vigilance

Zealous vigilance. Really? I've never heard it described that way before. While at the moment I hardly have a fervent partisanship to be alertly watchful especially to avoid danger (thank you, merriam-webster.com), I am a bit disposed to suspect rivalry. Or, more specifically, imaginary rivalry. Or rivalry that would have existed at some point in the last few years if the past could somehow magically meet up with the present. It really seems unnecessary, then, doesn't it, to be jealous of a hypothetical rival. So then why am I? I feel like a very petty person for allowing this kind of reaction to rise up in me. Why am I jealous that someone has something that I sort of once had but not really possessed? None of this will make any sense to anyone reading it, but I have to get these thoughts out. Maybe then I'll begin to understand them.

I've found it difficult over the last few years to let go completely of things (people) that are no longer part of my life. I so wish that I could just erase certain individuals from my consciousness; not because I have particularly ill feelings towards them (anymore), but because it would just be better if they no longer crossed my mind. If I never had to think about them ever again. Of course, that's not humanly possible (through natural means, anyway), but I think that there has to be a way to at least compartmentalize them so that they exist only in a box locked up and packed away neatly in your vault of memories. In a vault within the vault that has its own key. A key that you misplaced so well that you cannot with any amount of facility find.

And unfortunately, I have--for lack of a better word--unpleasant feelings toward people who do not deserve them. Who did nothing to warrant them except be connected to another individual about whom I have unpleasant feelings. And WHY when I see certain people do I automatically have a knee-jerk uncomfortable reaction? Am I not a strong young woman comfortable in her own skin and confident? I feel so weak when I allow the past to affect me in that way. Like I'm missing a part of me that I should have grown by now. The part that can just smile and chat away like nothing disagreeable ever happened. On the flipside of that, who says I have to get along with everyone all the time? Why aren't I allowed to not put myself in uncomfortable situations. My mother told me once, long ago, that I don't have to do anything I'm not comfortable doing. But me, being the people-pleaser that I am, I always try to slap on a happy face and be everyone's friend. I'm always concerned about what people think of me, even those people whom I see but twice--maybe three times--a year. I really do wish though, that I hadn't done certain things that add to the unpleasantness of these infrequent encounters, so I think that's part of the motivation to "make things all better." No regrets, though, right? Things happened the way they did and you can't change the past, so whatever. Right? So then no reason for the already acknowledged unnecessary jealousy. Ugh.

Maybe the trick is to fill your mind so full so as to force the memories all the way to the corners out of which no one ever cleans the cobwebs. The harder they are to dredge up, the more obscured they are by the uncleaned cobwebs, the better.

What am I still here for?
Could it be that I'm just waitin.
Oh hopin you'd rescue me and put the pieces together again

Is that it? That you keep them around in the vain, irrational, dim hope that a friendship might someday emerge like a phoenix? That what wasn't might someday be?

And maybe we never move on as far as we attempt to convince ourselves we do. Maybe we keep around these memories (and fantasies?) in which to indulge ourselves when we are alone. To use as a means of making sense of what went wrong, whose fault it was, etc. To distract ourselves from the fact that we are alone, that even the bad stuff is better than having nothing at all?

How does one work on truly moving forward? Does it really take years of expensive therapy (that, really, has the potential to just make things worse. It's why psychotherapy doesn't work fr sociopaths; it has the adverse effect of putting them deeper into their problems/delusions/et al.) Can it be accomplished with sheer physical distance? With replacements?

The past is gone but something might be found
To take its place...