According to one of my favorite communication books, every so often you should start a conversation with your significant other, friends or whathaveyou that starts with “what’s the most important thing we should be talking about?”

There are times, especially and most notably in the recent weeks, when I try to blog or write something, anything, and I will sit down in front of my computer, and stare at the few lines I have managed to type out on the subject I want to talk about, and I do this for about twenty minutes until I give up, close my computer and go do something else. Usually read a book, sleep, or get drunk. When I sleep I dream about being in school and not doing my homework. When I drink, I get morose and argumentative and keep talking about the same things over and over. When I read I go over the same sentence seven times, or I will suddenly realize that I have no recollection of the last page. Or three.

These blogs are my conversations with you, and with myself. Mainly, on my end, one sided. Which means that the question I should be asking, which I have avoided, is…”What is the most important thing I need to talk about and have someone hear?”

By not asking that question, and therefore not answering it, I am losing focus. I am losing motivation, I am losing authenticity. My blogs and all my writing becomes stale, trite or stilted and no longer…real. I just, basically, lose.

I have a hard time, lately, speaking my mind too freely because I tend to forget that this is my blog, and my thoughts, and yes, it might be public, but it is still mine. I have avoided writing about what I do not want to take accountability for. What I don’t want to own up to. What I don’t want to admit. It feels too close to the bone lately, too close to home. I am afraid of my audience. I am afraid of repercussion, intentional or otherwise. I am afraid.

I still believe that there are some things that are too sensitive or too personal (meaning, involving not just me) to put up here for public consumption. But there is a lot more that is not that sensitive, that I have avoided talking about, well, just because. Because…I don’t know why, anymore, really.

So what’s the most important thing I need to talk about today?

I have discovered a fair sized kernel of deep, unmitigated, uncontrollably savage jealousy in my heart.

I have tried and tried and tried to explain why or how I feel the way I do, and have failed miserably. It’s caused arguments. It’s caused tears. It makes me feel weak, ineffectual, small. Ridiculous. Foolish. Melodramatic. Bitchy. I am more angry at myself than anyone else, but I can’t seem to banish it. It’s so ridiculously…high maintenance and childish, and just fucking stupid, and I can’t seem to stop.

Why am I jealous? I have lots of theories. I know that I feel insecure. At least, about this one girl. I know that I have been fucked over, like stomped on, by men that I loved, in my past, and that makes me ultra-sensitive to the possibility of it happening again. I know how women think sometimes, and that men tend to attribute far too much innocence to them at times. I know she’s tried to take him home before, and that causes me some discomfort. I am not feeling very desirable at the moment, which leads me to wonder whether perhaps she might be more desirable than me.

I try to fumble my way through explanations of how I feel and I just end up looking like a jackass. A jealous, melodramatic jackass. Which then makes me feel even more insecure. Which then leads me to act like a jackass. Again and again, over and over, like some vicious merry-go-round where I’m strapped onto the ride and all the horses are grinning like maniacal devil steeds and I can’t get off.

The thing that is most ridiculous about this emotion is that it is completely unjustified. I mean, I know emotions don’t have to be justified, they just are, but I like to discover valid reasons for me to feel the ways that I do, because then it is easier to dismiss the ones that are unhealthy and counterproductive. Except it’s not working in this instance. In this instance, I know, intellectually, that there is nothing for me to fear, other than letting fear consume me to the point that I become a ball and chain rather than a fun, lovable, supportive girlfriend. Shit, if that happened then *I* would break up with me. I know that no matter how determined she might be, he is still a thinking, reasoning human being, in control of his reactions and responses, and that he would not succumb to her even were she to throw herself on him with wild abandon. I know that he loves me. I trust him. I love and trust him more than I thought possible, actually. My jealousy not only makes me less, but makes him less as well. I do us both a disservice.

The thing is, that when I walked into the bar tonight and I saw her standing there talking to him, I couldn’t look at her. I pretended she wasn’t there. I didn’t want to acknowledge her. I went and sat in a table in the corner behind a wall so that I wouldn’t have to see them engage in conversation. I am probably doing her a disservice too, but I can’t bring myself to care, just like I can’t bring myself to befriend her or be nice to her. It matters to me that they have a history. It bothers me to see them embrace or talk intimately. It makes me suspicious that she just turns up out of nowhere and unexpectedly. It bothers me that through my actions and jealousy, she is now the injured party and has the upper hand. It bothers me that I weaken myself like this.

If this was one of my stories, our heroine would simply glide up, smile serenely, and send the interloper packing with a well placed glance, an expressively raised eyebrow, and word or two. Her confidence would be unshakable, her poise and composure unrattled. She would greet the other woman warmly, greet her boyfriend with a hug and kiss – not a possessive display, just the normal greeting kind – and vanquish her competition through just being her charming, friendly, superstar self. Or she would befriend the woman, chatting companionably about men and life and make the woman admire her enough to leave her man alone. Our heroine would never in a million years scurry off and hide in the corner pretending that her adversary did not exist. She wouldn’t hide like some frightened mouse. She wouldn’t be beaten so easily.

So why do I let myself be so controlled by this emotion? This is out of character, unattractive, and unworthy. I wish it were so easy to stop feeling it as it is to talk myself out of it, but sometimes in real life emotions can’t be so easily reasoned away. Damn them.