Deadly Sin

I'd like to think I'm a good person.

I volunteered as a paramedic while still in high school.  I forsook big money in Engineering, and decided to become a teacher instead.  I wanted to help kids be ready for the future.  I volunteer with organizations as much as I can.  Even if I have little, I will give what I have to someone who has less (to the chagrin of Wife and others.)  I drove a friend to the airport at three o'clock this morning, not expecting compensation (She paid me over my objections) because that is what friends do.

Is it to make up for my Dark side?  All the drinking and fighting I did?  My inability to cope with the Woman inside of me?  Standing by and watching bad things happen and not standing up for what was Right?  My encyclopedia of faults as a person?

I don't have an answer to any of that.  I wish I did.

Very recently, I spent my day in a waiting room in a Philadelphia hospital with the wife of a fellow transgender woman who was getting Gender Confirmation Surgery.  It wasn't the first time I'd done this.  It won't be the last.  I was asked, and I was glad to help. Her wife and I had a pleasant few hours sharing stories and maybe some secrets, before we went up to the room where the transgender woman would be for the next week.  I said "hello" and left, as I didn't want to intrude on that couple's moment.

Whiz Comics #1, art by CC.Beck

There was another reason I left, though.

I like to think I'm a good person (is there an echo in here?)  I have many faults.  One of them is... sometimes I get Jealous.

That's not a revelation to my Wife.  She is quite aware of it.  As are past girlfriends.  I'm nowhere near as bad as I used to be, though.  I've developed a Zen attitude to it- that good things happen to others and not to me because They deserve it and I don't.

But every once in a while... yes, I get jealous.  And I am jealous of everyone that can afford Gender Confirmation Surgery.  I'm jealous of people who have a spouse who will sit in the waiting room while getting that surgery- who stay through thick and thin.

I don't blame my Wife for how she feels.  Far from it.  But that doesn't mean I don't get jealous.

I'm VERY happy for my sisters who get the surgery.  I truly am.  I am glad SOMEONE in this life gets to be happy.  But that doesn't mean I don't wish it were me.

Wanna know what's worse?  I feel REALLY bad that, at my age, I still feel that emotion.  In some ways, I've tried to purge emotions, as they have brought me nothing but Pain.  No, I'm not going for Kolinahr.  But jealousy is an emotion I've done my best to eliminate.  I try to replace it with being happy for that person's success.  For being happy that said person found someone.  Happy that other people jump effortlessly from high paying job to higher paying job while I can't get hired at Burger King, and am standing by to be homeless.

Here's me: smiling for their success- success that THEY DESERVE.  Yay them!

That doesn't mean I don't feel like a total asshole for wishing that just once, it were me.

Because I do.