Look, other bands, they want to make it about sex or pain, but you know, The Beatles, they had it all figured out, okay? ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand.’ The first single. It’s effing brilliant, right?… That’s what everybody wants…
I think First Corinthians is the most quoted bible passage of all time. If you’ve ever been to a wedding, you’ve heard it. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud..” and all that other nonsense. I’m sure you’ve heard it. It’s great, it’s comforting, and unlike most other things in the Bible, it feels true.
I’m not an envious person by nature. I’m more fortunate than most, and most of the time when I complain, it’s out of frivolity. I’ve been single for a long while, and I’d honestly say that 95% of the time, it doesn’t even phase me. Being single is fun, I can be pretty irresponsible, and only be beholden to myself. When I see couples making out, grinding, or going through some other obnoxiously public display of affection, I just laugh to myself. Good for them, they’re having their fun.
Today at work, I ended up being on the phone with a colleague of mine, talking about how she had to travel later this week to attend her mother-in-law’s funeral. She talked about making all the funeral arrangements because her husband was busy, how she was managing their grief.
And I think it was that thing that got me, “their grief”. That unspoken bond where something so personal as to lose a parent was shared. I realized that my friends, the couples that I admire, it’s the small everyday things. It’s picking out a shirt in a store that they might like, picking up candy because you know they had a tough day. Little, quiet moments. That’s what I’m jealous of; having someone that you matter to. To share everything in your life, not just the good parts, from the tragic to the mundane. Compared to that, everything else seems easy. Grand romantic gestures are nothing more than a short term fix. Sex and hooking up? Sure, a bit harder, but still not as hard as making something real.
That’s what I’m envious of, that they’ve found someone to build something with. Or if you want to take it another layer deeper, I’m afraid that I’m even capable of building something like that. For my entire adult life, I’ve been really good at taking care of one person, and that’s myself. It’s easy to say that, “Oh, once I find the right girl, I’ll be able to do it.” I know that the only way I get better at something is practice, and of that, I’m in short supply.
It takes something rare to make me jealous. Maybe jealous isn’t the right word. For once, I see something that I yearn for, and something that I can’t work toward. There isn’t some sort of application or test, I just have to wait, and somehow be ready. But I guess for this sort of thing, there’s no such thing as ready. I think there’s just willing.
So here I am, willing, waiting, and wanting.
Picture Credit: Allison Huresky
