Jealous Green

Jealousy.... It's in my Libra nature, I think. I try to bind it up but every now and then that green little creature creeps up on me. In my reality, jealousy is human nature. I hear people say all the time that they are not jealous but everyone at some moment is gripped by those tiny green digits.

In the year 2000, Erykah Badu, released her Mama's Gun CD. The longest song and probably the most personal was Green Eyes..."My eyes are green, Cause I eat a lot of vegetables..." Ms. Badu sangs her way through her issues with her boyfriend evolving ex-boyfriend having a "new friend". True to the stages of grief and death, what I love about this song is the movements. Movement I is Denial. Movement II is Acceptance. Movement III is Relapse.

Now relapse is not one of the stages of grief and death, according to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, but I could not understand how she skipped stages 2 to 4... Anger, Bargaining and Depression. What happened to being mad with that man for cheating, for leaving the relationship? A break-up is not complete until you beg and bargain for the lovin', "Don't leave me, we can still have an open relationship". And after you've said all you can say and cried and he's not hearing your pleas over the clap of the next woman's booty... when he says "no" and it really means no and not maybe, then that there depression envelopes you. That's when you take the good long look in the mirror, see the back fat that wasn't there before the relationship began and realize that your good just is not good enough for him anymore. That's when you spend money needlessly on scents, lotions, pocketbooks, make-up, shoes, brownies... no help for the back fat. But as time wavers, you begin to feel the relief, the tension ease, remnants of too much sugar on the tongue, and the depression lifts just enough for acceptance to come right on through. It's easy to see how Silly E. Badu can relapse when she didn't spend time mulling over the necessary stages.

Green is one of my favorite colors. It's the color of money, health, growth. But it's also used when referring to someone young or someone who is ill. So for the sake of this post, I will refer to jealousy being an emotion that is just a healthy process for growth, that is if you want to learn the lesson rather than having a green tinted pity party.

Erykah sang... "I'm insecure, But I can't help it, My mind says move on, My heart lags behind, But I don't love you any more, I'm so insecure, Never knew that love did this..."

Even in the most stable relationships, I sometimes feel insecure. This year has truly been a year for self-discovery and maturity and I had to learn that jealousy and most of my emotions come from within. Yeah it took 32 years to realize that those menacing people in my life are not to blame for each and everything going on with me. Of course I'm just joking. There are not a lot of menacing people in my life but I did stop pointing the finger outward and started looking within for the inward discord. I can't blame him or her for the wrongs when I've either given them authority in my life or I didn't make a certain decision and lived by default.

Life is all about choices and even emotions are all about choices. I believe in giving in to what you are feeling. If I'm mad, to heck with the person trying to bring me out of it. When I'm sad, I want to cry, roll all around the floor but I don't want anyone telling me to get over it. And if I happen to be jealous about something, for me it's not usually someone, I want to dance with that green creature until my acceptance, confidence comes riding up on a great white horse to rescue me.