Jealousy
I somehow inadvertantly signed up for Amazon Prime...I think it was when I was trying to buy the Tom Petty movie (wonderful by the way thank you very much Steve Lindstrom). I calculated the cost per month and thought about it and decided to keep it and see if it's worth it. Mostly just because I had recently looked into watching Treme and I could watch it for 'free' this way.
Ernie and I started watching it last night and there was one scene that made me heart flicker with jealousy. I was sort of surprised but it made me think about different times I've been jealous of families.
Years ago, when the boys were very little I asked one of my then-bosses what she was doing for Thanksgiving. I can't even remember the answer was...they were going to New England or Costa Rica or something...what hit me was that they had all sorts of options...they were totally free to do what they wanted. At that point my parents were going downhill and I couldn't imagine ever having that feeling again. I was so jealous.
Later, sitting in the hospital alongside my mother so many times, sometimes in our favorite bay in the emergency room, because, yes, we had a favorite, or in ICU, or in a regular room on our favorite floor that was so well run, I would see other patients surrounded by family members. Sometimes they'd be squabbling, sometimes laughing, and I was so terribly, terribly jealous. I'd hear them say that so and so was on their way, and they'd talked to this person and that one and I could see this encompassing community of family. Imperfect, no doubt, but at that time I felt so alone, just me and my mom, and I was jealous.
That's why I was sort of surpised last night when I felt that flicker of jealousy. We were watching the first episode of Treme, and in it, a woman was driving her father back to his flooded out post-Katrina home. She looked at him and said, "You can't stay there Daddy," or something to that effect. And in that line I heard that she was feeling like the parent in a sense, that she was watching out for him, she felt responsible, that she was going to worry about him. I heard that her role right then was caring for him. Suddenly, I missed that feeling so terribly, and I was jealous.
Those last few years caring for my parents were so hard....my father's dementia, my mother's slow painful descent. That last year of her life was awful. And as much as I missed them when they were gone, there was a sense of relief, of freedom. They were free of so much, and I was free to focus once more on my three guys, free to make plans to go anywhere..... Last night though, when I heard her say "You can't stay there Daddy" I was so jealous.
We are funny creatures, never happy with what we have in some ways.