First watch, start at 16:46, then let’s talk…
I recently had an experience that brought that scene to mind. It aired back in 2003. It was season 3, episode 18 of Girlfriends, they titled it “Runaway Bridesmaid.”
Overall, I’m a fan of Girlfriends, particularly for the culture. And if someone wants to buy me a box set of all 8 seasons for Christmas, I won’t object, but there were many times when I wasn’t too pleased with the shows writing or acting.
When I first saw this episode, back when I was 23, I didn’t think this scene was executed very well. It’s not like I didn’t already have my fair (if you can say that) share of traumas by that age, that would allow me to empathize with what Joan was going through. I think, probably as a defense mechanism, I just got really good at tucking shit away, moving on before I even realized the effects of the pain.
And so I looked at this scene and thought it was overacted, and thought the message just wasn’t conveyed. Like I knew what they were doing, I knew what they were trying to convey, but I didn’t feel it.
Fast-forward 17 years – a lot has happened since then – and I’m up late at night, actually early morning, around 2:30am, just getting around to going to bed, when for whatever reason, I pick up my phone and look at Instagram right quick. The post that pops up is from Elaine Welteroth, the former beauty editor, turned youngest editor-in-chief in Conde Nast history, turned Project Runway judge, turned author was there on Instagram informing her followers that she got the job as co-host on The Talk, after just moving to LA like three weeks prior.
And what do you think my reaction was, jealousy? Well, you would be wrong.
I’m not much of the jealous type. That’s not to say that the feeling never comes over me, but when it does, it’s rare and it’s mild, and it goes away quickly. I’m more of the type who would be happy for her.
As a matter of fact, I was so happy for her, that I congratulated her in her comments immediately. After seeing that good news, I didn’t even bother scrolling anymore. I put my phone down, turned the TV on, and began the process of trying to go to sleep.
I left the TV on a Christian channel and some time later, when I was half in and out of sleep, I heard a preacher saying something about the dangers of living vicariously through others. I remember him saying something like, “What are you so happy for? That blessing was for them not for you.” I dozed back off to sleep and didn’t catch anymore of his sermon. But when I woke up later in the morning, that part that I did hear stayed with me.
It got me to thinkin’ about how happy I was for Elaine before I went to sleep. And I wasn’t Joan-from-this-scene happy, like I was literally, truly happy for her. But after hearing that snippet of that pastor’s message, “It didn’t happen to you, it happened to them,” I can’t help but wonder was I living vicariously through Elaine? Afterall, I don’t know her. And I don’t mean that in a Mariah Carey throwing shade sort of way. I mean it goes without saying that I literally don’t know her. I had no part in her success, and yet after reading her post, a feeling of joy swept over me that was so strong, you’d think I was the one who got the job as a new co-host on The Talk.
Then I began to ruminate over it, going back and forth between my joy, and that pastor’s words, “that blessing didn’t happen to you, it happened to them.” And as I forced myself to uncover the truth, whatever the result may have been, I discovered, that like Joan, I wasn’t as happy for her as my emotions initially lead me to believe.
I. Was. Jealous.
I think part of these misplaced feelings has to do with the fact that I’m a Christian, and my faith teaches me against jealousy. I truly believe in the saying that you hear amongst Christians, that “what God has for me, is for me.” But that’s a simple phrase for a complex act. There’s a lot that goes into that. Eventually one gets sick and tired of waiting.
I remember in 2006 when I landed a temp job as a sales assistant at a book publishing company. That job came right on time because I had just moved to NYC, I had no job and I was running out of money. The job was nowhere near a dream job, but it paid an okay wage and it was easy. After about a month they offered me a full-time position paying $27,000 a year for 35 hours a week, which was around what the temp agency was paying me. I’d managed to negotiate them up to $33,000. Then an incident occurred (I won’t get into it now) and they rescinded the offer. Meanwhile, I stayed on as a temp while they interviewed other people and eventually hired someone else for the position. After they hired a girl, I was tasked with ordering the office supplies for her cube before she arrived. Now I could have been bitter, and did a piss-poor job with the task, but instead, I flipped through that catalog and order the nicest items I could find: a Lucite pen holder and stapler, and all sorts of pretty things. I ordered her supplies as if I were ordering them for myself, and I told myself that one day I was going to work at a company that would be so happy to have me coming, they would also order me nice things.
And I think that’s been my philosophy ever since then, perhaps a way of coping — one day it’s gonna be me. Yet here I am, over 14 years later, and I’ve never worked in an office that was that happy to have me. I’m still chasing my dream, looking to grab hold of that elusive one day.
In the meantime, and in between time, I’ve just been happy for “her.” The hers that have come before and increasingly after me. The hers that are older and increasingly younger than me. Any her that’s achieved her dream. Any her but me. Instead, through them, I live vicariously.
So while I continued to contemplate about why I was so ridiculously happy for Elaine, as if the job was going to me, I began to realize that maybe it’s because somewhere inside I believe that that type of opportunity (the opportunity to land a dream job) will never happen for me, and the only way I can experience that type of joy is to live vicariously through someone else.
It was a jarring revelation. It wasn’t that I was truly excessively happy for her, so much as I didn’t believe in me. And when I allowed that truth to settle in I realized that I was jealous, and that it was okay to have that feeling. Because my jealousy was basically letting me know that I don’t want to sit back and only be happy for someone else. It let me know that I gotta do what I gotta do to get where I want to go, so that I can also be happy for me.
God didn’t create me to simply be a spectator of others realizing their dreams, He’s got some lined up for me as well. I just have to come off the sidelines, and hop onto this moving train. Next stop, my dreams.
Congratulations to all those who have the courage to pursue and achieve their dreams.
And I am still happy for you… I’m just reserving some of that joy for me!
Leave a Reply