It feels like yesterday was the beginning of the next chapter of my life. It was so perfect, so rather ‘normal’ – whatever that may mean. It was the Presidio YMCA that was the oasis. The people so welcoming and for the first time in months and months and months I felt the old me come back. My knee did not bother me at all and I jumped up and down and played enthusiastically doing water aerobics. One wonderful woman said to me:
She: Looking at you I am sure that you were a cheerleader in high school or a terrific party girl
Me: Actually I was not, as I was horrifically abused during my childhood and adolescence. But I am making up for it now!
She: You sure are! It is great having you in this class!
Me: Thank you. I cannot begin to tell you how happy I am to be here!
A staff member and I had the greatest chat while I waited for Personal Driver to pick me up. We discussed jealousy and how evil it is, evil and destructive. She said (and it is true) that other women are jealous of me. Obviously not all women, but many, many, many. Not the women encountered at the Presidio YMCA yesterday but many women everywhere. Women met in my London days, my Vancouver days and my now San Francisco days. Let us look up jealousy.. It is envy, enviousness, covetousness, desire; resentment, resentfulness, bitterness, discontent, spite, grudge; informal the green-eyed monster. This is jealous used in a sentence: She was consumed with jealousy at the younger woman’s superior talents.
Wikipedia has a great deal to say about jealousy. “Jealousy generally refers to the thoughts or feelings of insecurity, fear, and concern over a relative lack of possessions.
Jealousy can consist of one or more emotions such as anger, resentment, inadequacy, helplessness or disgust. In its original meaning, jealousy is distinct from envy, though the two terms have popularly become synonymous in the English language, with jealousy now also taking on the definition originally used for envy alone.
Jealousy is a typical experience in human relationships, and it has been observed in infants as young as five months. Some researchers claim that jealousy is seen in all cultures and is a universal trait. However, others claim jealousy is a culture-specific emotion.[8]
Jealousy can either be suspicious or reactive,[9] and it is often reinforced as a series of particularly strong emotions and constructed as a universal human experience. Psychologists have proposed several models to study the processes underlying jealousy and have identified factors that result in jealousy. Sociologists have demonstrated that cultural beliefs and values play an important role in determining what triggers jealousy and what constitutes socially acceptable expressions of jealousy. Biologists have identified factors that may unconsciously influence the expression of jealousy.
Throughout history, artists have also explored the theme of jealousy in photographs, paintings, films, songs, plays, poems, and books, and theologians have offered religious views of jealousy based on the scriptures of their faith.”
Me: I am beginning not to be bothered by women’s jealousy. At first there was resentment, on my part, as it was so narrow minded and quite ignorant of my past. I would think – here have what I have but you have to live the first eighteen years of my life – those years were hell.
She: But now?
Me: Now I just think – keep it up! It makes me look better. They are miserable and spread misery making me look better by comparison.
She: That is a good attitude.
Me: Instead they should learn from me. But if everyone were like me, I would not be so popular. Hahahahaha. So I form friendships with women who are not jealous and with men. I am fine.
I have finally found peace and my life is not crowded with negative people. It has proven a blessing.
But back to another subject. Would my ‘luck’ with men improve if I met them under more normal circumstances. I have a strange way of researching this subject. My apartment is littered with editions of the Sunday New York Times as I cannot bear to throw out the sections – so many team with information, with insights and with quirky ‘news’ – well what passes for news But here is a bargain. Every Sunday edition contains a section called Vows which reports on the marriages that have recently taken place. Then, as an extra added bonus, one or two of the newlyweds are featured and we discover how they met, the details of their courtship. It is quite often not riveting, barely interesting and one wonders why their particular story has been chosen to be told in such detail. Here is an example, one titled: The Romance Took Off After He Landed. The names are not mentioned in this version.
First the facts: We learn the following facts; The groom is 30, the bride is 32. She works for her parents in the real estate world, he works for Apple. A high school friend played matchmaker and decided that the groom would be a good catch so thought it would be a good idea if the bride to be went with him to the airport to pick potential groom up at the New York airport (where she lived). She found the guy cute and they ‘hung out for a couple of weeks.” But problems ensued. She wolfed down a cheeseburger and this turned him off, thinking she must not care about him otherwise…she would eat it slowly???? But they persisted in contact and in September he came back to NYC and they had their first kiss. (This romance is not moving very fast) But by October she told him she was in love with him and suggested he move in with her. They went on a long walk together to a pier where they became ‘mutually engaged” Then they got married at a hotel at the airport. Then they went to live in Los Angles. The bride mentions that she loves her groom’s sense of humour, that is the attraction.
Now personally, I do not find this tale romantic at all. Some of my versions are much more compelling but have not resulted in marriage at an airport hotel. Thank goodness for that! Hahaha. I guess I will just hang out at the Presidio YMCA, do water aerobics and get in great shape. I am actually not fond of Los Angeles either. Well – I have been married three times – not one of them complained about my wolfing down a hamburger and the marriages all ended in divorce. Good luck to this Sunday New York Times couple.
The picture is of a business card, picked up somewhere. It would have been more suitable for yesterday’s blog.
