envy

Dear swing set lady,

Hello, I am the pre-school aged escape artist who lived in your neighborhood back in the 1960’s, you know, the one with the raging case of swing set envy.

Apparently, on afternoon walks with my mom I had spied what I determined to be the top of a beautiful red metal swing set in your backyard. Please forgive me, but I couldn’t wait the six months for Christmas when I had been promised to receive my very own swing set straight from the North Pole.

I was obsessed! I had even marked the page in the Sears catalog.

But sometimes a girl’s just gotta swing and I could get to yours without crossing any streets so…

Now, don’t feel sorry for me I got plenty of swinging done on our family excursions to Petit Park, but when you factor in my fearlessness, my ability to wander off and my insatiable need to swing—well, I just couldn’t be stopped.

Or at least that’s what I’ve heard over the years.

People discover their wanderlust in many different ways. Most of my friends found theirs in the gap year between high school and college. You have to understand wanderlust. It is fueled by curiosity and funded by courage. You could say mine followed the same path. It started with curiosity but since I’m pretty sure four-year-olds don’t possess courage per say, mine was fueled by envy.

And an insatiable need to swing.

Also, my profound lack of understanding of and general disdain for delayed gratification —an affliction which haunts me to this day!

So you can look at it this way swing set lady, my wanderlust kicked in when I decided to embark on my solitary field trip to your backyard.

I don’t know what got into me that day. Maybe we couldn’t go to the park, or I was shown on a calendar that Christmas was a shit-ton of days away but as the story goes: one minute I was there, the next I was not. Apparently, I was one of those shape shifting little kids and my thirty-pound, white haired self could disappear as quickly as a puff of smoke.

Now don’t think for one second that it was my mother’s fault. I hate it when you get judgy.

You know how it is! You must have been a mother, you had a freakin’ swing set in your backyard!
Raise your hand if you haven’t turned your head for one second to see if you have a chive in your teeth and the baby rolled off the changing table—or the couch—or the bed. Or your toddler wandered into the abyss that is Nordstroms.

I thought so.

Anyway, you have to admit, the fact that I knew my name and phone number at that age was impressive (EM 363-6932), and if you’d asked me I would have read you Green Eggs and Ham and any other Dr. Seuss book you owned. You have to admit—that’s some damn fine parenting.

Anyway, back to you. You were very nice to me while we waited for my mom to stop vomiting and come and pick me up. I remember she wasn’t mad at all! She was crying she was so happy to see me! I almost expected a parade on our walk home.

I guess I want to thank you, swing set lady; for being my childhood neighbor. Your kindness (I remember you giving me a cookie), and your ability to keep your wits about you and not freak out when you looked out your kitchen window one morning to see a strange little girl swinging, made me feel safe in my lust to wander and THAT has been an invaluable gift to me.

And thank you for talking to my mom because I never had to wait until December—I got a brand new swing set of my very own like, the next day.

xoxJanet

I can’t ever imagine taking pleasure in someone else’s misfortune. Can you? No, of course you can’t!
Yet, I know people like that exist.
You know, they hang around the not so nice people.

I hear them in line at Alfreds;
I’ve overheard their telephone conversations (okay, just one side, but you can still get the gist) in airport terminals;
and someone has actually said something snarky and malicious TO MY FACE about a mutual acquaintance.
More than once.

The first time it came as such a shock that I just stammered, the food falling from my surprised lips, and to my credit I neither agreed nor rose to our friends defense — I just got up and left.

I say it’s to my credit because if I had agreed with the villainous, insane pleasure this woman was taking at the expense of said friend, well, I would have had to join The Douche Bag Club, a club so fraught with stink that you can only remain a member for about one month before dying of asphyxiation.

If I had come to our friend’s defense it would have come to blows and the place we were in was public, and although I may be on the small and polite side, I’m a scrappy spider monkey and I would have taken. her. down.

Plus I was wearing a skirt. And heels. And you have to take those things into account. You cannot wage a good assault in that kind of outfit.

All this to say: When it happened to me again, with someone different, I didn’t hesitate to speak up.

This time I had on pants; and comfortable shoes; and it was a telephone conversation so I could count on very little blood being shed.

Someone we knew had lost a ton of money when one of their stores closed. A real shitastrophy.
I had actually been in on several of the discussions leading up to the closure so I was aware that it had been an extremely hard choice for them to make.

This other person was deriving such delicious gratification, satisfaction, even enjoyment in relaying all the lurid details, as she understood them to be, that her glee reached a fever pitch as she exclaimed how much she loved when “rich people failed big.”

“Hold it right there.” I ordered, after finally hearing enough,
“Although it may look otherwise, it was a smart business decision, besides, that rich person is out in the world doing good things. Remember? They used to pay your salary and health insurance, and although they can probably absorb the loss, it’s still a shit-ton of money and I can assure you, none of this feels good to them.”

My words fell on deaf ears; she had HER story to tell that was a lot juicier but — nowhere near the truth.

It was a tale rife with bankruptcy, botched Botox and marital woes — and I gotta tell ya, this woman was in pig-heaven.

Can you imagine?

Here’s the thing you guys, and I’ve found it to be true time and time again: Those that take pleasure in other’s misfortunes; in failures, divorces, even accidents and tragedies are the side-line sitters — the ones that never take any risk. They live with their butts glued in the safe-seats, and pass judgment on those of us that get our asses kicked on the playing field of life.

Of course they hate rich people, because they don’t have the courage to leave their shitty job and go out on their own. They never ask for a raise, pose the hard questions or have an inspired idea.

Instead, they keep their binoculars trained on the ones that do — watching and waiting for a mis-step.

They are also known to be riddled with envy.
They can’t be happy for anyone’s success; they dismiss it, chalking it up to luck, family money, contacts, astrology, nepotism, anything but hard work, and the guts to take chances.

They also have a hard time with happy marriages, good health, washboard abs, and expensive vacations. Oh, how they hate a nice vacation story!

Please, when you encounter someone like this — and they spew their toxic nonsense all over you — set them straight.

And then drive away…and take an expensive vacation…with rich people.

Love you, Carry on,
xox