There exists a myriad of different emotions that we all experience, for better or for worse. For most of my life, I've felt sort of numb to the world, not through lack of experience or emotion; I suspect this comes from suppression for one reason or another. Lately I've thought a great deal about my past, and this is one story I've never really explored.
A bit of back story before I begin. I went to a small school in a small city, where our of high school's graduating class of ~250 students, well over 100 of us had been together since kindergarten. Everyone knew everyone, again for better or for worse.
Now, Jimmy and I were immediately friends in kindergarten. I really don't recall how this happened, or what brought us together. Heck, even growing up we had largely different upbringings and interests. I won't go in to details, especially considering how little I know, but suffice it to say that when we did see each other, we didn't always see eye to eye, though we remained friends.
The story gets interesting, as stories often do, when you added a third component to the mix: Randall. Randall lived across the street from Jimmy, where as I lived on the other side of our small town. Randall and I both had, from what I could tell, the same kind of friendship with Jimmy, but Randall possessed a depth of friendship with Jimmy, someone I valued and looked up to, that I simply could not possess. I didn't know how to, and to this day I'm still unsure of whether that could be changed.
Of course, now such a thought seems dreadfully trivial. I find that valuable friendships don't form through constant impression and work but through acceptance and respect. Still, though, I'm haunted by that feeling, the most intense instance of jealousy I can recall. Other tinges exist, such as seeing someone with a nicer X while I'm stuck with my piddly Q, but that bond, that friendship I could not have, that really struck me. I disliked Randall for no other reason than his closeness to one of my own friends; hardly a healthy reaction, but a reaction that transpired nonetheless.
I must apologize, as my conclusion doesn't necessarily follow from my story. You see, the beauty of life and a positive attitude change has led me to become good friends with both Jimmy and Randall. Still today, they're some of the few friends from growing up that I keep in regular contact with, that I look forward to seeing or hearing from. The conclusion is that I was not happy with who I was, and that sometime between being jealous of my friend Randall and now, something has changed in my life. Looking back, there are a lot of moments that I'm not proud of, and this is one of them. Randall and Jimmy are both fantastic people, and what on earth was I thinking holding such a grudge against either or even both of them for not liking me as well as they liked each other.
