"in elizabeth's estimation"
You Just Never Know
Elizabeth Bridgers
For many years, I’ve watched Jessica with some level of envy. She’s beautiful, is artfully winning the battle with weight and aging, has a Ken-doll husband, and perfectly coiffed children. She has it so together. Her life simply looks perfect.
She lives in a ritzy house that’s well-decorated and is already renovated — no paint buckets and drop cloths in the showcase home that seems to reflect her life. Perennially happy, Jessica is always put together like a Sandra Bullock movie character. It’s not that I wish ill on her, but...
From the outside looking in, I’ve found it a little challenging not to begrudge Jessica her perfect life. Here I am struggling to create perfection that seems unachievable — trying to balance kids, a house, and a career. There are days when my goal is simply to have everyone clean and where they’re supposed to be. Jessica is a mother too, but she is so calm. I bet if we went on a picnic, I’d end up with dirt on my butt, my hair bedraggled and windswept, and she’d look like she just walked out of a salon. Do you know the kind of people who are always starched and shiny while you just dripped mustard down the front of your blouse? It’s unnerving! I feel constantly harried and behind, with a to-do list longer than a double-roll of Charmin. How does she do it? I know it’s not pharmaceuticals. In some inexplicable way, her life is simply not messy and every aspect of her life exemplifies that.
I really wish I had this particular trait. To be breezy and wrinkle-free and always laughing. I wish for this so much that I found myself secretly resenting Jessica and her perfect little life.
Unfortunately, even picture-perfect lives have cracks. And for Jessica, the crack split wide open and everything changed for her when she found out that her husband was in love with a younger woman. While the leaving-you-for-a-younger-woman scenario may be a cliché, I’ve found that it’s overwhelmingly painful for women who experience it personally. Jessica never saw it coming, and now she’s trying to start a career late in life and figure out how to single parent while she repairs her broken heart.
As Jessica shared with me some of the uglier truths behind the dissolution of her marriage, I felt guilty that I’d ever thought, even for a nanosecond, that it was unfair that her life was so perfect. Of course her life wasn’t perfect, despite that fact that I chose to view it that way. It reminded me that things are never as they appear from the outside. People from all walks of life have challenges and crosses to bear. Many people are better at disguising their pain, but it’s there just the same.
So the next time I’m looking at someone with envy and wishing my life were as good as theirs, I’m going to think about Jessica and be thankful that my over-flowing, busy life is as messy and crazy as it is.