Summertime Jealousy

I am jealous.

It's clearly summer now. Both the weather and calendar agree. The days are hot and steamy. Thunderstorms could erupt at almost any minute. The grass is growing so fast it needs to be cut every three days. The cool waters of our pool are warming to temperatures in the eighties.

Yet my golf clubs sit idle in the storage room downstairs. My knee isn't ready yet.

So I am jealous of those who are playing twice or more a week. I hear them talking daily at work about their game. Their problems with slices and hooks. Their short games bailing them out or failing them. Their putting success and woes.

And I wish I had their problems.

The Tiger's are playing well now (knocking on wood as I type this). They are a game below the even mark of .500 after being as poor as twelve games below that mark. I sit on the back yard deck on the evenings they play and the weekend afternoon games. I root for every pitch. I have some friends who have season tickets – and others who have bought the baseball package for their satellite or cable T.V. at home. I couldn't justify the thousand dollars for the season tickets or the couple hundred for the TV package.

I prefer to listen to a ballgame on the radio, but still, I am jealous.

When I was a kid, I loved summer more than any holiday. More than my birthday. I would live with my friends down at the community pool at Plantation Swim and Racket club. The club is still there. I checked it out on Google Earth. And then I walked the neighborhood in Lawrenceville, Georgia. It looks exactly the same. Thirty years have not changed the physical appearance of the place at all. They did add two tennis courts though.

Now my kids have a pool and playground in their backyard and I wonder if I did them any real favor by buying this house with that stuff. But we do love to hang out in the back yard playing in the nice weather.

But on Mondays, as I head back into the office, I am jealous.

I know that jealousy is an immature thought. And I am not a person generally jealous of material objects – except perhaps the huge LCD HD Television my in-laws have. But I do cherish my personal time. And there is not much of it I can claim with work, physiotherapy, and events my daughters partake in. So when it comes to the free time I had like when we were kids in the summer, I get jealous.

This is a condition that I have learned to control. But not a condition I have learned to conquer. I know there are people who have conquered jealousy though.

And of those who have conquered jealousy, I am jealous.