I saw something yesterday, just a snippet really, something that made me pull back the curtain on myself a little. Something that made me feel that familiar ache in my chest, that quiet anger I used to push down, push down, push down every single day when the kids were little, when my whole identity felt like it was dissolving into laundry detergent and macaroni and cheese. I was reading a piece online, about a marketing manager – can you imagine? – celebrating a bonus in the office kitchen. “I just CRUSHED it this quarter!” she apparently crowed, loud enough for everyone to hear. And right there, at the next table, a group of colleagues were talking, hushed voices, about their layoff notices. Their notices. This isn’t a story I made up, mind you. This is happening, right now, everywhere. And my first thought, my IMMEDIATE, gut-wrenching thought, was “Good for her. She earned it. She worked for it.” And then, a second later, the shame washed over me. Because how could I think that? How could I possibly feel a flicker of admiration for someone so utterly tone-deaf, so completely oblivious to the pain unfolding right next to them? Is that weird? Does everyone feel this push and pull? This desperate wish to be happy for someone’s success, even as it grates against the stark reality of others’ suffering? I think about all those years, all those years I wanted to ‘crush it’ at something, anything, beyond keeping tiny humans alive and fed. The quiet resentment of watching other people succeed, achieve, be *seen*. We are such strange creatures, aren't we? Humans. We crave recognition, crave reward, crave that feeling of being good at something. And we also, or at least I do, crave connection, empathy, a shared sense of humanity. But those two desires often feel like they’re pulling us in opposite directions, like two wild horses straining at a single harness. Because if you’re too focused on your own triumph, do you lose the ability to see the struggling person beside you? Or worse, do you just not care? I used to wonder, sitting alone in the quiet house after everyone had left, if I was too sensitive, too much of a… dreamer. If I’d ever had the chance to be in that marketing manager’s shoes, would I have been the same? Would I have forgotten? And that’s the confession, I suppose. That little part of me, the ambitious, competitive part that never got to stretch its legs, still sparks to life at the idea of “crushing it.” Even when it’s utterly inappropriate. Even when it means someone else is losing. It’s a flicker, a dark little secret, that I recognize that yearning for personal victory, no matter the cost, even as I despise it in others. I try to be better, every day. I really do. I try to hold onto the bigger picture, the way we’re all tangled up in this together, the fragility of it all. But then a story like that comes along, and I’m right back there, feeling that old, familiar mix of envy and disgust. And I still don’t know if it’s a failure of my own character, or just… what it is to be human, every day.