I Want, I Want, I Want

In the words of my kids, "It's not fair!"

Doesn't that just sum up life? Add that to M. Scott Peck's famous first line in The Road Less Traveled "Life is difficult," and there you have it. A philosophy of life.

Life is not fair.
Life is difficult.

Is it any wonder that I wrestle with envy on occasion?

Envy is a sin. I know it. The handy-dandy on-line dictionary says envy is a "painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another joined with a desire to possess the same advantage." Even if we call it "ambition", envy is still so uncool.

Envy is one of those sins that mostly hurts the sinner. I've known this ever since I was a little girl staring at Lisa Palombo at the Assembly of God church I attended. Lisa sang with the voice of an angel--way before Charlotte Church, and way better, too. But I didn't envy Lisa for her voice alone. No way. Lisa had the flattest stomach of any girl in our church. And school. And town.

Her nose was a little too big and she had a smattering of freckles, but she walked in a sort of continual spotlight of attention. She blinked her eyes a particular way when she talked and I did my best to imitate her. She was four or five years old than me and I adored her. I wanted to be her. "Single White Female," anyone?

Of course, I was only a child. I was still enamored with her when I was a teenager, but she had the nerve to grow up and go to college, so I fixed my attention on Bobbi Jack, instead. Bobbi Jack had a flat stomach, too, and she also had a father who coached her softball team. I think that's why her team always creamed my team. My father never even attended one of my games. And Bobbi Jack had really cute clothes in really small sizes. And her hair flipped exactly like Farrah Fawcett's. My hair looked like Farrah Fawcett's hair after a tornado.

I've always noticed other people, always envied the good stuff, always minimized the bad stuff and then wondered why my life was so crappy.

You see the problem, though? We each measure other people's good stuff by our bad stuff. I never compared Bobbi Jack's flat stomach to my ability to calculate complicated math problems. I never compared my musical ability to April Wren's dimples. How could you really quantify the diversity of good stuff versus the bad stuff? We are all so different. But when you are twelve, all you know is that the boys are googly-eyed over Lisa and not you.

The more you compare, the more you find people who have more than you do. And if you are sensible, you realize that there are a whole lot more people who have less than you do--less health, less wealth, less wit, less compassion, less stuff. It's like realizing there is always someone fatter than you and someone thinner (unless, of course, you are the 58-pound anorexic on the Maury Povich Show). It's just a big continuum.

I started to really comprehend that in college, right about the time I decided to forgive my parents and move on with my adult life in an adult fashion. So what if my parents divorced and shattered my childhood? It could have been oh-so-much-worse. Things could always be worse. (And you thought a doom-and-gloom outlook was unhelpful.)

And so, even though the green-eyed monster dares to show his ugly face around here occasionally (sometimes more than occasionally), I never, ever invite him in to share an icy glass of Diet Coke with Lime. I kind of look into his dull eyes and roll my own brown eyes, close the door, bolt it and say "Whatever."

So what? I live in an older home. My yard is being overtaken by English ivy and wild blackberry vines. Our tiny used car barely seats us all. But really, I don't care. I chose this. Every bit of it, down to the carpet in the upstairs bathroom and the yellow-gold sink in the kitchen. This is mine. I made deliberate choices and all that accompanied those choices are my responsibility, my blessings, my reminders.

This life is the one I want. I chose my husband, that calm, sweet, kind man whose worst habit is not cleaning his George Foreman Grill. Despite an early bout with infertility, I ended up with three sons and a daughter. Even though I haven't flown in an airplane since 1994, I live in one of the most beautiful regions in the United States. On clear days, I can see Mt. Rainier and the sun setting on the Puget Sound. Who needs to vacation?

I won't lie. I would love to live in a house with glossy floors and marble-faced fireplaces and carpet so padded that your feet sink with each step. I would be thrilled to drive a gas-guzzling car and even better, to not have to worry about the cost of filling that gas tank. I'd accept the services of a maid and--why not?--a cook, too. Vacations twice a year? I'm there.

I would relish the finer things in life. But I know they are just things. Things that Hurricane Charlie could blow away.

And when it comes down to it, I have everything I need right here, in this house built over thirty years ago. In fact, I have so much that I have to keep cleaning out the cupboards and closets, lest we are overtaken by an avalanche of stuff.