That Little Green Monster

I decorated Christmas cookies with my teen daughters yesterday.  I just bought the precut sugar cookies and we made the icing and got busy with some cookie masterpieces.  I was feeling pretty good about it until right in the middle our very good friend dropped by with a big box of cookies his wife made.  Not just sugar cookies, but gingerbread, fudge, peanutbutter, chocolate chip, rice crispie treats, the whole freakin` cookie cookbook.  I looked at my pre-cut sugar cookies and felt very underwhelmed by my efforts at that moment.  I adore this woman, but at that moment I was angry.  Here she is pregnant with her fourth child, works full-time as an x-ray tech, runs a Brownie troop, makes and paints wooden signs and sells them at local craft shows, takes her kids to the zoo on the weekends, just a ball of energy while looking like a 6ft supermodel to boot.

Why did I get mad? Because she has all the energy and ambition to do all those things and I don't.  Instead of looking at my daughters who are teenagers and still willing to spend the weekend with me, and having a great time I was jealous and and angry that I couldn't do all those other things anymore, and it made me feel like a failure.  My husband doesn't think of me that way, my daughters don't think of me that way, my friends don't think of me that way, and even this woman who is a true angel, has told me she looks at me as an example for how to raise her daughters. Did I mention she is also 12years younger  than me? Arrgghhh, why then do I do this to myself?

Maybe because after 21 years of MS I'm still in somewhat of a mourning stage. I mourn what I was not able to accomplish when I was younger, like completing college. I mourn that I never was able to achieve my true potential like so many of my friends. I mourn the carefree life that I imagined as a young girl.

I know that all those things are silly and I really am happy with the life I have made for myself, but sometimes these doubts just creep in and I have work really hard to shoo them away.