Tuesday, March 27, 2007

I am three and I don't play nicely with others.

So...

You know my husband bought a new motorcycle. And I was okay with it. I mean, it's not like he just came home with it one day and surprised me. We had gone to look at them and he had asked me what I thought. I was kept abreast of all of his motorcycle shopping actions. Yet still it came as almost a shock to me that he actually bought it.

I was very hesitant about spending the money. And I told him so. In return, he told me exactly where the money to pay for it would come from. (And, no, 'out of his ass' was not where it was coming from, even though it seemed to me to be the only place he could find money in our budget.) Yet I still saw it as a frivolous purchase, and figured he would come down off his 'high' to see it as such too. But he didn't.

And I told myself I would not be jealous. I told myself I would not be bitter about him spending the money. I told myself I would be an adult. But, in fact, I am not an adult. I, apparently, have the emotional maturity of a three year old because now all I can think about it is: what about me?

I want things too. I have lusted after things and have been talked out of them because we just didn't have the money right now. I have put desires on the back burner. I have even kept my job to be sure we had money to pay off some of our medical bills. And now some of that money is going towards the motorcycle. The motorcycle that I don't even like to ride. (You'll never ever catch me on the back of that thing.)

So there it is: my jealousy. My bitterness. And I was in such denial about my feeling that way that it took me several days of being grumpy and down in the dumps before I finally put together all of my feelings and realized that I was feeling jealous. And I won't lie to you, I am ashamed of feeling this way. I cannot believe that I would begrudge someone else their happiness just because I wasn't equally as happy. Yes, yes, I am three and very selfish indeed.

Oh... but before you call the marriage counselor to try and save my poor husband from his life of misery brought on by his selfish wife, know that I will not take it out on him any more. No, I'm sure he got the message when I broke down in tears and told him how I felt. Yet in the confusion of the moment, it somehow translated into him having to get me a new dining room table right the hell now. Which wasn't really the point, but I'll take the new dining room table anyway. No, I think the point was that I had just realized how I felt, and I wasn't proud of it. And it'll just take a little less motorcycle talk on his part when we're together for me to feel better. He'll have to treat me like the jealous older sibling whose family has just received a new baby. He'll have to give me a little more love and attention until I grow the hell up.

And I'll take any furniture he's willing to buy me.

2 comments:

sara said...

ha! i'm totally the same way. i honestly think that stuff won't bother me, but it does. and i'm always walking out of the store thinking "i just spent $100 and none of it was for ME!!!".

congrats on the new table!!!! ;)

E said...

Thanks, except I haven't actaully gotten a new table yet. He'd promised to go table shopping...and we haven't had a chance. I did get the bedroom rearranged and the bed up off of the floor onto an actual bedframe again. So that's good.