I wish I had green eyes so they'd match my jealousy

First of all, I just read my last blog post and laughed. I put it on the wrong blog. Whoops! That should've gone on my poetry blog. My bad. Too late, I'm not moving it, but I thought I'd point that out.

Being an artist, I think I tend to succomb to jealousy more easily than most other people. It's so much more than just having someone ahead of me at the office. I can't really see mathletes getting jealous of who solved the equasion since there's only one answer and they should both be able to achieve the same one. But when you're an artist, there's always someone better than you and it's so friggin' frustrating.

Music is my soul. It's everything I am. If I weren't so clumsy and have a tendency to bleed a lot, I'd believe I had do-ray-mi in my veins instead of blood. So, naturally, I play several instruments. Guitar, bass, and drums -- bass is my love though. However, it seems that no matter how hard I practice and how good I get, there's always someone better. Just when I start to become proud of my accomplishments, I hear someone play something that's way out of my league. Then I get frustrated and won't even try for months on end.

I don't think it would be so bad except my best friend in high school was one of those annoying people who could pick up any instrument and learn it with agonizing speed. Even though he started playing guitar three years after I had, he surpassed me in a few months. I couldn't even play with him because I couldn't follow. I always wanted to yank the strings off the guitar and strangle him with them. I had never before been around someone I loved so much and yet hated so desperately. Since then, I never play with anyone. I can't. I feel inferior and always want to cry. And nothing makes me cry.

Music isn't the only problem I have, though. I struggle with the same thing in my drawing. I practice a lot and always think I'm doing pretty well and coming along nicely until I see something my brother has drawn. He can see depth and shadows and angles that I cannot even comprehend. When my brother was four, he almost failed kindergarten because he wanted to sketch instead of color. This is even worse than having a genius best friend--I have to LIVE with this one. I have to see my artwork side-by-side with his and hate myself for the difference. I'm ok with occasionally posting little goofy cartoons on facebook or whatever, but I'd never post my more serious artwork. I loathe it for its incompetence and inferiority.

Now, despite all that, everyone says my claim to fame is writing. People tell me all the time that they wish they could write like me, or that they love my writing, or that it's vivid and descriptive. But I don't see it. Even my technique is flawed. I start sentences with "and," "but," and other conjunctions; I end sentences with prepositions; and I always feel like my writing is flat and choppy. Like there's no emotion in it at all, even though I try so hard to inject it. My mother, on the other hand, is brilliant. If I'm good, she's beyond amazing. So even the one thing that I'm supposed to be great at, I still live in the shadow of my mother.

I've just come to realize that no matter how much I love something, or how good I think I am, there's always someone better. They make it impossible for me to truly enjoy the few things in life that should give me comfort and pleasure. I'll never be able to succeed as a musician, a mangaka, or an author simply because I know I'm not the best.

If I had confidence in my art, I might be able to fool people.

But I can't even fool myself.