Listen to What Your Jealousy Is Telling You
Grieving what you don’t have is the first step to imagining a better future
The first time grief triggered my jealousy was during my freshman year of high school. I was at my locker, packing up my books to take home for the weekend, when my locker mate Val asked, “So, what are you doing for Mother’s Day this weekend?”
“I… I, umm, I’m going to give my grandmother a card, and then I’ll go to the cemetery to visit my mom.”
A poignant silence followed. She nodded, then politely removed herself from the conversation, while I stood there sagging beneath the weight of my textbooks and my loss.
Starting high school is hard enough. But it’s a special kind of hell when you go to an all-girls high school, your mom has died, and you’re suddenly hyperaware of the fact that everyone but you seems to have such a special relationship with their mothers. I had spent that whole week feeling sad and extremely jealous, and I’d go on to spend all weekend with an added layer on top: feeling sad about not having a mom, jealous of those who did, and guilty about how jealous they made me.
The guilt was an inextricable part of it. I grew up in a Catholic family and a Catholic school system, both of which taught me that “jealousy” was synonymous…
