Do you know that...

feeling... the one where a weight bears down at the bottom of your stomach, which is only stressed more greatly due to the sheer emptiness you feel directly behind the sternum? And, oh, how little it takes for the arteries to detach from the heart and allow to to fall freely to the depths of your being. A simple silence from one you hold dear. Their words eluding to another outcome. The time they spend with someone other than you.
Is it jealousy? Maybe in part, though it is more the case of self-actualization. An actualization that you are scared. An actualization that you have no idea where you stand. An actualization that you whether you act or not, there is no guarantees.
Jealousy has a negative connotation, as it often should. But, am I past jealousy? No... and I hope that I may always hold a fraction of jealousy within myself. This keeps me wanting to be better. This keeps me fighting for what I really want and retreating when something isn't truly important. I'm not a brave man, but I am a man willing to do something more than I have done to receive something previously impossible.
I often fall short of even my desires for myself. But, at the end of the day, if those in whom I hold dear are happy, and happy to be around me, then I am happy, and only then do I feel that I'm on the right track.
Or maybe I have it all wrong...