Envy, 11:15

Envy, I do not experience envy in my life, I thought.
I began my search looking into the world around me, hunting for examples of envy in others. Some time later, a dear friend of mine was relating her experience with a friend of hers that is a boy. For some months, they had, or more exactly, she had been flirting with the idea of having a relationship with him. The chemistry was right, good conversation, she liked him and she lusted for him. In that familiar swirl, one evening recently she said some “things” that scared him. Scared him so completely that he went away. They were to have gone away together the next weekend, but, he went MIA, High tailed for the hills, bailed, bolted, burned rubber, ran like a bat out of hell in the opposite direction.
She was clear of her transgression. Her pain was palpable. Broken hearted, casting about for a way to repair the damage she had caused. One plan involved a note and a stuffed teddy bear to be left on his front porch. Her friends discouraged this course of action.
In the end, a simple message, I screwed up royally. I am so sorry. Pressing send was a courageous and vulnerable gesture. No response.
She licked her wounds. She cradled her heart.
Slowly reconciling herself with herself.
Waiting for the despair to subside. She started to heal. Her broken heart did not form a callous. The breaking of it and subsequent healing, expanded her capacity to love, made her heart bigger. Her pain subsided slightly with each passing day.
It was Saturday evening. She was in the kitchen making herself a snack. Her phone was resting quietly on the counter beside her. Lost in a reverie as she chopped crisp dark green kale. The phone chirped, startling her. She laid the knife down, rinsed her hands at the sink, dried them on a hand towel, and touched the dark screen. It glowed as her touch awakened the messenger. It was from him. He missed her, he missed lying beside her, missed their conversation. Would she like to come over? Resounding YES! And she went to him.
A delightful evening, and the next day, Sunday, a dark rainy day, they stayed nestled, enjoying each other. After, she realized that their sweet time together, was, for her, an intimate bonding experience. For him, it was a booty call.
Angst; n. A feeling of deep anxiety or dread, typically an unfocussed one about the human condition.
Her angst walked onto the stage. Richly costumed in medieval grandeur. The jacket, made from a heavy brocade of despair and dismay, ornately trimmed with a fine lace of “I am cheap”. The ruffled shirt, white and slightly worn, woven from the fine thread of “ I am not worthy”. This outfit crowned with an ornate hat, festooned with long colorful plumes pulled from the birds of insecurity and draped with a black veil of “I am a fool!”
Envy, n. a feeling of discontent or resentful longing aroused by someone else’s possessions, qualities or luck.
Later, reflecting on her story I was rather shocked to notice I was experiencing Envy. At first I thought I was longing for that emotional and physical intimacy. For that delicious feeling of lying in bed together with another human you love immersed in that comforting warmth and touch. Bodies suffused with an elixir of safety and connection of the most profound kind.
But no, though that is part of it, my envy is sourced in a different place. I envy those qualities in him that make him irresistible for her. I am annoyed that, in his frivolous myopia, he cannot see her, the amazing human that stands before him. Beautiful, intuitive, intelligent. No, not a goddess, a human, insecure, mistrusting herself, stumbling in so many ways. .
I envy his ephemeral quality of being irresistible.
I envy his opportunity to be offered such a precious gift.
I envy