Thursday, January 12, 2012

Undercover Jealousy Monster: Resolve to be happy with yourself this New Year

It has been a while since I've posted. And I can tell you, this black hole of time in my blog space was no accident, despite being unintentional. But, it's a new year. Maybe even the last. So with a new (final) year, you've got to have a wicked sweet resolution. After several weeks of winter break boredom that served to give my mind time enough to mull over the last two months, I have my resolution--and it's a good resolution for all women to adopt.

But before revealing my resolution, a bit of background info:
I'm graduating in May.
I've been attending college in one way or another for six years.
I moved in with my boyfriend.
I have no savings and lots of student loan debt.
I am turning 24.
I don't know what will happen for sure after college.

All of these things have been stressful to the point of causing me to lose the ability to sleep through the night. But, those things alone haven't really been the exact cause of my completely irrational, stupid, cranky moods for the last two months. But I think I figured it out and, as a feminist, having these feelings have definitely kept me far, far away from my poor blog.

First of all, navigating girl world is no easy task. We are taught to be nice, to share, to be optimistic, to make best friends, to have boyfriends and fall in love and get married and push out a few beautiful babies. And that's all great. Those are good things for the most part--not exactly every girls dream, but you get the socially acceptable idea. On top of those things, though, we are taught to be the prettiest, to be the most wanted, to be the most popular and so on an so forth. We are taught to get attention and that it feels good when other girls want to be in our shoes. In other words: We are taught to be jealous bitches.

I can think of no better example in my life of being a jealous bitch than right now. It's awful. I hate it, and I don't want to be all jealous of my friends because they have good things happening to them. But here's the thing: My friends are all getting engaged, are currently pregnant, or have children. My best friend got married. I cried mostly because I was so, so happy for her--but in the back of my mind all I could think was, "when will my life begin?" Way to be a feminist, right? It's so cliche, but it has been drilled into the female mind for centuries that their real, adult life will only begin once they walk down that aisle or birth a small human.
So my best friend got married. And then my roommate became pregnant and just got engaged. And another girl at work got engaged. And so on and so forth. And each time, I felt so angry. So mad that all I've done is go to college and go to college and work at a restaurant for four years. This jealousy has gotten in the way of my friends' happiness, since everyone can read my emotions and i can hide nothing--stupid Pisces. And, its been getting in the way of my own happiness.

I know I'm not alone in feeling like this. Just check out Jenna Marbles' latest video blog about the same subject:



So starting now, I want myself and all women to stop being jealous of eachother simply because society has instilled silly ideas in our heads that happiness lies in marriage and beauty and popularity and children. Our lives are not a competition against one another.

So step one of this new year's resolution (say it with me ladies!): I resolve to value what I have done so far with my life, and look forward to the future. I resolve to be supportive of my friends instead of focusing on how the steps they're taking now haven't happened for me yet. I resolve to acknowledge that jealousy happens, that is an ugly thing, and that I will move on from it and stop comparing myself and my value to other women.

I already feel better, and I hope this post and Jenna Marbles made you all feel better too. Happy New Year!

4 comments:

  1. I'm 48, and read this because one of my students posted it to our Women's and Gender Studies site. When I was 24 I was unmarried, no kids, no career, and I felt a lot like you describe yourself. My boyfriend didn't seem to want to marry me, etc. But, a friend sent me to a psychic (this was a long time ago - on the west coast - everyone was New Age). And the psychic told me one thing about myself I carried forth: that I wouldn't do things AT THE SAME TIME as everyone else did them. As it turned out, I'm probably 10 years older than my colleagues in the same position, I didn't marry till I was 42, but I live exactly the life I was afraid to even dream of. It just took more years of adventures to get here. So have adventures, not babies.

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  2. Thank you so much for reading and commenting! It really does feel better to just admit these things. Life is a silly thing, and people shouldn't have to expect things to happen by a certain time in their lives. I'm at least lucky enough to have two intelligent, loving nephews and a sweet and funny baby niece while I wait to start my own family some day :) I'm happy you found your own way through life and are at UWGB to be a mentor to us young women. Great advice!

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