Roberta ate jelly sandwiches. I ate peanut butter sandwiches. That is, Roberta would only eat Welches grape jelly sandwiches. And I would only eat Peter Pan crunchy peanut butter sandwiches… That’s just the way it was.
Roberta is my sister. She is almost a year and a half younger than me. We ate our sandwiches with each other all the time when we were little kids. I would look at the jelly oozing out of her white bread and my teeth would hurt. Jelly looked very appealing. I was mesmerized by the purple color. The consistency was kinda like jello (I liked jello) but it moved around more. It was squishy and shiny. By appearance I should have loved the stuff. But I wouldn’t touch it. Not even a tiny taste…
Why? Can’t say. I do know that even as a child I wasn’t much hooked on sugar. Not only were my teeth too sensitive, my tongue contracted in response to intense saccharin offerings. (Uncle Albert took me to the circus and bought me PINK cotton candy – What!? It didn’t taste like it looked. One of the biggest disappointments of my life. I couldn’t believe I didn’t like it! Same thing with Cracker Jack. I was losing out on basic kid treats…)
Grape jelly was easily avoided. But it was one of my first experiences of being different or separate (maybe that explains my complete dislike – just to assert my own identity?) It was a kind of different that was neither good nor bad. Just different.
I must have been around 4, 5, or maybe as much as 6 or 7 years old when I ate all those peanut butter sandwiches. The years rolled on and my palate expanded but never enough to include jelly.
Other parts of me changed too. Now a simple difference like peanut butter vs. jelly could cause mild to severe disruptions. Differences were now weighted. They were no longer neutral. Peanut butter is BETTER than jelly. Being taller is better than being shorter or older is always (in a kid world) better than being younger. By 5th grade these differences were getting ugly. This kinda hair vs that kinda hair or my Barbie doll is not only different than yours but better. At any given moment I could be feeling superior to my girlfriend or I could be feeling crummy and less than. Differences made the difference…
My life began to be more complicated. A preference for peanut butter or jelly now had me drowning in the Jelly Sea. Jealousy, resentment, pity (both kinds – for myself or someone else), anger, envy, superiority and inferiority and on and on were swimming in my new ocean of emotion. All because sometimes what I had, or did, or felt, or said was different from my girlfriends. It was getting to be painful…
Not too many years ago Steve and I were visiting our son, Eddie who was spending a few months on the island of St. Lucia. The island is actually the top of a mountain jutting out of the Carribean. Thats why the water right off island is very very deep. And that’s why it is almost navy blue in color. Something about that color has never left me. So a few months ago we were on Eddie’s boat (he lives in St Maarten) and though it is not a mountain island like St Lucia right off shore the water is that same midnight blue and deep deep deep. Eddie’s boat has a screen that tells you just how deep. It was blowing my mind that we could be in 1200 ft and only a small distance away it would be 37 ft shallow! The water is a spectacular clear light blue when it is shallow.
I’m pretty sure my Jelly Sea has these depths and shallow waters too. Differences and preferences – they seem to start all the trouble. You like to do this and I like to do that. You wanna talk about that and I want to talk about this. I want what you have that is simply different than what I have. Sometimes I’m mad because you see it your way and I see it mine. I can feel inferior because what they have is fancier than my stuff. And then there are all my thoughts! Judgement! Secrets of my mind! Why are you different than me? Why do I care? Why can’t I tell you? Why are those folks so annoying? Why do they make choices so different from what I do. Churns up the waters and disturbs my peace…
As my friend, Lisa says, “Enough already”. I want out. Out of these Jelly Seas that can be deep as a mountain or shallow and rocky. My knee jerks and in an instant eons of programming send me tumbling back into old familiar waters. I call them the RED emotions. Each a derivative of anger in some way. Wasting my precious moments better spent in the sunshine, smiling and soaking up the joy of pure life.
Soon it will happen. The Jelly Sea and all its silly sea monsters will morph into playful neutral differences once again and peanut butter will just be peanut butter…
P.S. Nope. I don’t have one. As my husband let me know I don’t seem to have a plan for getting rid of my jealousy and all the rest. Just confidence. Whenever I figure out that I really want something a whole whole lot I get 100% all about it. And then – WHAMMO – things happen. I can’t stop thinking about it. I picture how happy my life is going to be. It’s #1 on my plate. Always first on my list of things to do. Sooner or later the change does happen. It sounds very simple but it works for me. Bye bye to the Jelly Sea.
DISCLAIMER: My grown up taste buds LOVE jelly on my breakfast toast but never ever ever on my peanut butter sandwich… YUK.
My World My Words 