I am a believer.

i am a believer in things.
unexplainable, unattainable, impossible things. of words that rhyme and speak to your soul. of faces that chase and go where you go. of junk and knickknacks from other worlds. of places where adventure attacks and unfurls. of hair that gives you rebirth and new hope.  of songs that speak to things you don't know. of rooms that comfort and colors that scare. of smells that follow and you find everywhere. of the color red in the back of your eyelids. in the delicate pink that the first morning sky is.

i am a believer of people.
who will hurt you and murder you and eat out your brains. who are worthless and toothless and probably insane. who would rather just die than put one foot in front of the other. those who are broken with guilt from another. who hate everything and everyone. who can't remember how it feels to have fun. who are sick and hurt and ache. who long for another time and place. of the girl in the corner who thinks no one wants her. of the boy who gets so angry he feels like a monster. in the ugly, the crying, the messy, the dying. of the people who feel things you shouldn't feel. and the people who see things that shouldn't be real. in those who try and try but just.....can't. those who feel insignificant.

i am a believer of dreams.
the kind you know will never come true. the ones where magic becomes part of you. dreams that live and breath on their own. dreams that put you high on a throne. dreams that eat at the blackness inside. ones where you wake up and just sob and cry. dreams that make you wonder what you have become. dreams where you find the things that you love. dreams that make you doubt your innocent intentions. ones that address your sick, twisted dementias.


i am a believer in all the wrong things. because i believe life is never how it seems.

I am jealous.

Let me start by saying I have a great life. I'm not trying to brag - but life is good at the Armstrong house. My husband and I are so alike it's scary - we can already know what the other's thinking with the slightest indication (hint- it usually involves food). I have, what I consider, the cutest and smartest dog in the world who hasn't torn up our adorable, centrally located downtown Colorado Springs house. Blah blah blah sunshine and rainbows blah blah blah - you get my point.

So let me paint you a picture (you can imagine me sprinkling some fairy dust and wiggling my fingers - I know I did)....I'm going about my day, perfectly content with my life. Until suddenly I get an email. It's from a good friend of mine letting me know that another good friend of mine is pregnant. This has been happening quite often lately - more often than not it comes in the form of a facebook status update or picture of what can only be an xray squirrel inside a brown bag (or a sonogram) posted on a facebook wall. Each time I hear the news something MAGICAL happens (cue the dust and finger wiggling again). My brain starts to lose all functions resembling rationality and reason and my eyes start to morph from their lovely chocolate brown color to bright green. No, I'm not becoming the hulk - if I had those kinds of powers I wouldn't be working a desk job, posting blogs all the time - IT'D BE CLOBBERIN TIME (wrong superhero? deal with it). I instead become the incredibly annoying, completely rude and ungrateful version of myself called Jealous Leah.

Who is Jealous Leah? She's the version of myself that forgets my husband is in grad school and that we couldn't afford a baby if we wanted one (which we DON'T). She completely disregards years of friendships over the 20 pounds her old classmate lost and jumps straight to pure loathing. She wants to burn every cute outfit, mutilate every adorable hair cut, steal every awesome idea and leave a trail of bloody blogs so the only cute, adorable and awesome things in the world belong to her.

Once the rage inside me cools (and my eyes turn back to brown) - I can usually remind myself of the ways I'm fortunate and muster up something that looks like excitement for my friends. Yet I can never really stop my knee-jerk reaction of jealousy. I can cover it up with a smile, I can avert my rolling eyes or I can give an empty "Congratulations!" without adding the desired "..you jerk" at the end. No matter how hard I try - that need to feel superior (and jealousy when I don't feel superior) is always there. Waiting for a moment of weakness to peek out and hurt someone I genuinely care about.

Sometimes I rationalize things. I tell myself the person is an idiot for getting pregnant at 23 (you're not!), that whatever cute picture was taken isn't so cute (it is!) or that 20 pounds isn't that big of a deal (it.totally.is). Why do I have this need to be better than my friends? Why do I continually fail at finding joy in others accomplishments (case in point my relationship with my brother)?

As usual, I don't have the answers. Even if I did - they'd be meaningless unless put in to action. Call it my broken, human nature, call it a mean streak, call it a genetic mutation that magically (fingers and dust, fingers and dust) turns me green and raging - but jealousy runs in my blood.

I am jealous. I am working on it - one bit tongue at a time. I am using CLOBBERIN TIME in more conversations.