the green-eyed monster

by rantywoman

Speaking of negative emotions, jealousy is one that tells me a lot about myself.

As I resign myself to going back to work and accepting my lot, I am sliding into insane jealousy over a never-married, childless comedienne around my age who is starting to get bigger roles. She has creative parts in smart projects and has large stretches of time off between gigs. She’s quite pretty so always has a boyfriend. Her beaus are totally my type– not GQ handsome but offbeat, razor-sharp, witty, anti-establishment, cute in a quirky way, right around her age (she seems to have escaped the ageism issue), and socially connected to a lot of creative people. She appears to have a large group of extremely bright friends and acquaintances.

Don’t get me wrong– I don’t want to be a performer. I’ve realized in the past decade that my constitution could not withstand the anxiety. I’d be a drug addict in three months.

What I would like is a smaller version of the type of life she has or to have at least ONE of the things she has. Just one.

She’s pretty, but I’m not hideous. I’m smart and can be funny, but I don’t make my living at it. It doesn’t seem like the divide between us is so great that I couldn’t make some headway in one of those categories, but I’ve been unable to do so. I’ve never had the type of creative job where one goes from project to project with stretches of time off. I haven’t had a long-term relationship in over a decade, and the last time I had a strong, connected group of creative friends was about eight or nine years ago.

I do know lots of other appealing women who are in my shoes, of course, so perhaps this particular celebrity is an anomaly. She complains and has stretches of unhappiness, and I’m sure she doesn’t feel her life is perfect, but it’s hard to imagine her trudging through mine.