Jealousy is so unattractive

... and it's much worse when it's you yourself who is feeling it. Sigh.

I went to see an exhibition of some work done by a former friend of mine. (The "former" part is a long story, but not one I will go into here). It was amazing. It was the sort of stuff I wished I had done. And as I stood at looked at it, I realised I was jealous...

Of course my Critic came out in force and told me I had no talent, at least nothing like THIS and I'd never be able to do anything like it, etc etc. You know the story. And much as I tried to talk back to it, saying "I could do this, not exactly like that, but that wouldn't be the point, I would want to do *my* stuff", it came back with, "well you haven't got much done yet, have you? and you are nowhere near an exhibition and all your stuff is amateur anyway, who would pay money for it? it would just be embarrassing for you to have an exhibition...." and so forth.

Then on top of everything, I felt bad for feeling so jealous and I was thinking all these horrible thoughts about this person, and again realised I was just jealous, and to let her have her victory in the beautiful work.

All in all, I just felt totally lousy. I know that I am going through another bout of depression at the moment and this didn't help, but still...

I am trying to use it as inspiration for my own work, as in "if she can do it, so can you; you just have to DO it".

Horrible. Know the feeling?