Green

the first HUGE jealousy i remember having was over my mother's hair. it hung like this gorgeous, garnet-lit cape down her back and, like all the white people's hair i came to know, it actually moved when she shook her head. . . . pure magic. i couldn't have it, so i made it out of anything that was somewhat glossy, smooth or, at the very least, long. and so i began the first steps on my journey to weavedom with things like hands towels, tights (hello, pigtails!), tee shirts and the occasional pair of elastic-waist shorts. i am convinced that every little colored girl did this, but there was a sort of follicle-oriented malaise in the case of the little colored girl with the white mother. it wasn't like i wanted to have the long, movable hair in order to be white. i just wanted to be more like my mother, who just so happened to be white. it was only later that the jealousy over hair became more about race and far less about feeling connected.

the big J carried over heavily into elementary school and, when it wasn't the other girls' hair i envied, it was their clothes or their shoes or their scrunch socks. a girl named jenn always had the best of everything and, painfully enough, she was still a very sweet girl and one of my best friends. she probably never knew how i would sit and stare at her tretorns with their perfect little plaid swoosh or at her penny loafers with the shiniest pennies inside of them. the moment she came to school wearing keds, though..... i was absolutely gagging on the fabulosity (thanks, kimora) of those perfect, white canvas specimens. with the little. blue. tab. i'll tell you why this was so important in case it is lost on you. you could go to almost any old store and buy white canvas shoes like that. HOWEVER. none of them- not a one- came with the little blue tab on the back. they were tabless. and they let the world know that you did not, in fact, get your kicks from a real shoe store but from some discount chain like clover or ames or jamesway. i couldn't have those shoes, so i took a blue bic pen and painstakingly colored a faux tab on the back of my ames originals. . . . . and that was pretty much my m.o. throughout elementary and junior high school. i couldn't have any of these things i was so jealous for and so i made my own poorly-constructed knock-offs. . . . and so.....

here i am at almost 32 years old and i am still jealous. occasionally it is over something like shoes or clothes, but i have learned that i can look beautiful in a two dollar thrift store shirt as long as it fits well and i don't try to pair it with high-waist flared denim, thank you very much. mostly i am green over the lives of others. facebook, for all it's wonderment and social networking, is a sore spot for me. every profile picture i see makes me feel like everyone is having more a.) fun b.) traveling experience c.) time with friends d.) time at a salon e.) mall shopping experience or f.) every single one of the above . . . . even those really pretentious and somewhat self-absorbed profile pictures that people take of themselves from weird angles looking pensive with perfectly mussed hair look fun at my lowest moments. i tried doing one of those before and just wound up looking slightly constipated. plus you could see a few of my fingers where i was holding the camera.

i know that many of my friends will try to encourage me on this point of jealousy by reminding me of my marriage and my baby and my general good health. and i am definitely happy about the health, let me tell you. i had a stomach flu last month and i felt like a lifetime movie should have been made about that particular physical struggle. i don't think i could handle actual serious illness. . . . and however much i love and am committed to my family, i remain overwhelmingly jealous of my single and child-free friends on a daily basis. i want so much sometimes to be able to go to sleep later than 8 p.m. and sleep in past 6 the next morning without wondering if my child needs something. i want to be able to have extra money to travel somewhere and not worry about packing twenty-seven diapers and changes of clothes. i want to be able to go out on a saturday night and not have anyone to be home for except myself and maybe a cool gay filipino roommate who enjoys making me brownies and doing my make-up because he works at sephora and can bring me home free samples.

and yet i know that there are just as many single and child-free friends who look forward to the day they do have all of the baggage and hassle and beautiful complications of being a parent and a spouse. all that being said, i am still very jealous. i may always be a jealous person. so far it's been a pretty long stretch of envy. and i'm not even saying the grass is definitely greener on the other side. but i do think it's at least a little bit grassier. it's just different. and sometimes that's all i want.