"You can't always get what you want- but if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need."
All hail the Rolling Stones
Sometimes I think we want things that other people have, not because we actually really want the thing, but because the other people seem so happy and satisfied from having possession of it that we want to feel whatever the hell it is that is making them so damn happy.
I had a friend once tell me that my happiness made her want to puke. Someone actually said that to me. And we were in our twenties. I get it now that she probably just desired something in my life that she was lacking, and didn't know how to express herself- but that doesn't make her asshole comment hurt my feelings any less.
Thus, it's very clear to me, that adults revert to acting like toddlers more than we think.
Watching a little child learn the woes and hardships of not always getting what they want and not always getting to just take what other people have has made me think a lot lately about how that tendency to feel that childish burning desire for what other people have never leaves us, even into adulthood. It doesn't go away- we just learn how to harness it better and put on a good face, like all of those other social graces we have to conform to- like not crying with reckless abandon when we are pissed off, or refraining from throwing temper tantrums when we don't get our way. I still do those things all the time... in my head.
Extreme irrational desire is just another form of hunger... and man can it burn inside you. I see that hunger eating my little boy alive sometimes when he watches his baby sister happily going to town on a purple teething ring or concentrating really hard on reaching for the pink yarn hair of a stuffed unicorn lying next to her.
Suddenly that teething ring is worth its weight in gold and that unicorn, which has been side-stepped and overlooked for months without a second look, is the most interesting, sought after prized possession in the world.
Jude's new favorite catch phrase is, "Hey that's MINE!" which he had to have learned from school, and he doesn't discriminate with what he has decided is his.
While I'm nursing the baby: "Hey, that's MINE BOOBY!"
When our friend Brett reaches for his beer on the coffee table: "Hey that's MINE BEER!"
While I'm putting on baby sister's headband: "Hey that's MINE HEADBAND!"
It's never ending- especially now that she is sitting up. I think it's because she is slowly but surely starting to assert herself as a growing child who will someday rival him in mobility and ability- and he feels threatened by her progression. That "feeling threatened" scenario strongly mirrors how I have experienced and seen other adults behaving and reacting towards one another in grown up land over the years (myself included).
Hmmmm....
I don't think we like to admit when we desire things that other people have, but I don't think anyone is immune to it. I wouldn't go so far as to call it jealousy- that is a whole other topic on its own- but maybe it could be jealousy's prettier sister. People want what other people have- no matter how satisfied we are with our own affairs and life and business.
We can have all of the toy cars in the world, but still ache inside- for no real rational reason- for a pink and white stuffed unicorn. The unicorn is not our style, we know that it doesn't in any real way fit our interests and method of play, and we're not really sure what we would do with it if we had it.
But boy- look how happy it is making our baby sister.
I need that.
Baby Mochi's first official sit up play session on the picnic quilt. Jude was wary of this and immediately shoved her over to lay flat on her back. Then laughed maniacally.
Sat baby back up after a mild scolding and lesson on not pushing people for Jude- all of which he dismissed and all but ignored with a look of disregard that makes me leery of his teenage years. His attitude and personality is so much like mine sometimes that it scares me to death.
Not 10 seconds later he had taken her bow, the drum in front of her and the stuffed unicorn and all of the teething toys surrounding them, and set up camp on the opposite end of the quilt- with the baby sitting all by herself, staring at him with a teeny tiny furrow on her brow.
I got her stuff back and offered him some stuffed ponies, but he wouldn't shut up with the freaking out until he had negotiated at least taking back possession of her unicorn.
GEEZ.
