By nature, I am not a jealous person. Never have been, and don't really see that changing in the future. I believe it to be a supremely petty emotion and the only thing that has ever given me a near pang has been a sassy pair of shoes I spotted on a lady once.
Now that I have clarified I am not the jealous type, I need to explain I am one who can be easily annoyed over things I consider reeking of impropriety and obnoxious. Or as Mama would say "your Irish is being stirred up."
Mama claims the cause of this is that I think way too much about things. "Stop that," she will say.
But here I was one day, all in my happy spot looking at puppy pictures when there she was: Lamar's ex-wife in my Facebook news feed.
We aren't friends in real life. I never met her. Probably wouldn't know her if I was standing behind her in the grocery store.
But there she was, cluttering up my news feed talking on family's posts.
Heck, she was even added in a "closed family group" a couple of summer's ago - a group, I quietly exited upon that knowledge.
I could understand, I argued, if they had had children and she was wanting to stay in touch with family for that reason, but nope.
"You are not the jealous type," Mama reminded me as I fussed.
"I'm not jealous. I think it's annoying -she's acting like she is still in the family and all up in their Facebook grill," I said. "And it annoys me, because when I got divorced, one of the things that jackwagon got was the few members of his family I liked."
It wasn't right. I had been friends with one of the ex's cousins before I knew him. She, I missed. Him, not so much. I lost custody of her in the divorce. The rest of the family, I was glad to get rid of.
But here this woman was.
"You know what you need to do?" Mama began. I knew this was going to be a doozy, she was using her favorite phrase: ‘What you need to do.'
"Stay off that silly computer," she said.
There's a reason people get divorced. Usually, it's not real amicable, it's not pretty - it's a bitter, sad, ugly process.
It's not one that usually ends up with family being ‘friends' with the other party afterwards. That can be awkward, uncomfortable and just be too all-around weird.
What I found ironic is that my ex-sister-in-law is often one of those ‘friend suggestions' I get occasionally. The first time I saw that, I nearly jumped out of my Spanx.
"You aren't friends with her, are you?" Mama asked when I told her about that.
"Mama, I am not friends with her off the computer so I am not going to be friends with her on the computer," I said.
Plus, she probably has some fat photos of me stashed away somewhere out of spite.
Why would I be? I am sure when we divorced, battle lines were drawn and people chose sides: the ex had his family, and I had mine.
He kept his friends, I kept mine.
We didn't speak or have any reason to after the "big D" was final.
When I found some of his family Christmas ornaments mixed in with mine, I didn't call him to tell him - I carefully packed them up and mailed them to him. There was an ending, a resolution and it had come after well over a decade together, a growing up and growing apart.
And eventually, realizing an ending meant there was no reason for us to be in each other's lives anymore.
Granny used to talk to his grandmother until recently.
"Leave her alone," I would reprimand the old woman.
"Why do you do that?"
Who needs the computer, when you've got the world-wide Granny? She's usually more accurate than any search engine.
"I liked her. We was friends," she said.
She's lying of course; Granny didn't care for her, she's just trying to keep her nose in their business so she can find stuff out and slip in tidbits about how I am doing.
"Stop it, old gal," I warn. "There's no reason for you to do that and you know it. You are just being nosy and you know it."
But maybe my boundaries were a little more clear.
Sudie Crouch is an award winning humor columnist and author of the recently e-published novel, "The Dahlman Files: A Tony Dahlman Paranormal Mystery."