Jealousy and Envy

This is not the post I thought I would write at this time of year!

If you know me – in real life, or on Instagram you’ll probably know I love Christmas – and its never too early to be preparing for it and planning and talking about it! So the fact that it is the 12th December makes me think I’d be happily chatting away about Christmas!

But I’m not.

Well I am in other places but in my personal life, around those closest to me, I’m not. I’m sad, I’m jealous and envious, I’m not feeling happy and positive.

I’m feeling sad about life and how it has turned out, and where I am in life – home, mood, size, fitness, the list goes on…. and I’m jealous and envious of others and how their lives are working out for them.

Realistically and practically and underneath the emotions I know how lucky I am and that I’ve a great life. I have a home, kids, husband, ability to be fit and healthy, and professional help to work on my mood and mindset etc.

But it doesn’t change the fact that the emotions are there. So I am trying to work on them.

My very precious granny died a few months ago, after slowly disappearing away over the last number of years with dementia, so I had pre-grieved her and my loss, so her death didn’t floor me the way it would have if she was in her full health, but life was so busy that I didn’t really grieve. And last week, I was doing calendars for Christmas gifts, and I went searching familys’ Facebook pages for extra photos and came across posts around Grannys passing and memories and I got very sad. Once the calendars were ordered I kind of gave in and just have been sad since.

One of the things that came up over the days around Grannys funeral was obviously stories of her life and her character – and I feel that I am coming up short – and letting her down. I am a good kind person, but I don’t have her energy, motivation and get up and go. She managed to do so much, while having young children, and she build such a life and home. I want to build life and home like that. I want to be remembered like her. I want to carry on her legacy as such.

Both my parents homes are in the countryside and are fabulous. I’m happy when I’m there. I’m calmer and nicer. Both homes were built/extended by my family and have so much character and personality, and space. I live in a small square box of a house.

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My husband came home at this point in my writing and I had a little bit of a sad moan and cry to him, and we came up with a starting solution to this house which has settled my thoughts a little bit. So I’m feeling a tad bit better right now.

We have four kids in a small 3-bed house, the two small girls (8 and 4) share so that’s fine, we gave the 16yr girl the box room because she has always had to share her room (with the older girls before we had the smaller girls) and made a partitioned section of the girls room into a gaming room for the 12yr old boy – but in the year he’s been in it he’s grown about a foot and he has no space in the room and it’s been getting me down a bit.

After Christmas we’re going to rejig the rooms and split our bedroom into two small rooms and then the boy will have his own room and privacy again. Amazing how much that has eased my negativity about home.

But what keeps getting me down is other people’s houses, and I am fully aware of the sacrifices people have to make to get their houses and then I regret that we didn’t make those sacrifices for us to have our own house. I’ve always wanted a house in the countryside, with space and a garden and privacy. Instead I live in a small box house in an estate of identikit houses. I keep trying to make this house our home but my interior design skills are not wonderful and my lack of ability to follow an idea from start to finish kind of means it never really works out!

All around me people are making changes, moves and living their lives and I feel I have limited chances or opportunities to make any of the changes I want to make – the bigger changes, the living, the house, the holidays – all of it. I’m questioning my decisions up to now and struggling to see how to make the jump from where I am now to where I want to be. Or making what I have, what I want. I suppose I’m just feeling a little lost and hopeless at the moment. I need to go back over my life coach course work and get my mindset into a better place, because even a few weeks ago I was full of excitement and hope but I have let this funk get in on top of me. In one way I am not sure whether this is a good thing, and that I am getting to process and deal with my emotions instead of burying them inside and trying to ignore them. But maybe I’m allowing a funk get in and allowing myself to wallow in my sadness. Think I’ll be asking my counsellor what she thinks later in the week!