What Happens When You Get The Thing You Were Bitter About?

Here’s a question I’ve been sitting with lately:

What do you do when you finally get something you wanted — something you were publicly, visibly, ugly about not having?

I’m not talking about private disappointment. I’m not talking about quietly hoping for something and then finally receiving it. I’m talking about the kind of wanting that spills out. The kind that other people witness. The kind where your family heard you complain, your friends listened to you vent, and the people closest to you watched you be unkind when someone else got the thing you didn’t have.

What happens when you finally get it… and everyone remembers how you acted when you didn’t?

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Have You Ever Wanted Something So Badly It Made You Ugly?

I don’t mean ugly like unattractive. I mean ugly like unkind. Ugly like bitter. Ugly like the version of yourself you’re not proud of.

Have you been there?

Have you watched someone else get promoted, get engaged, get the house, get the opportunity, get the news — and felt something rise up in you that wasn’t happiness for them?

Maybe you said “must be nice” and didn’t mean it kindly. Maybe you were dismissive when they tried to share their excitement. Maybe you vented to your family about how unfair it was. Maybe you made someone else’s good news about your bad feelings — about what you didn’t have, about how long you’d been waiting, about why it should have been you.

Maybe you made their moment about your lack.

I have. I’ve been that person. And I’m not proud of it.

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What Is “The Ugly”?

The Ugly isn’t just jealousy. It’s everything jealousy turns into when you stop containing it.

It’s the comments you make. The tone you use. The face you can’t quite control when someone shares good news. It’s the way you show up — or don’t show up — when other people are celebrating.

The Ugly is complaining to your mom about something that has nothing to do with her. It’s venting to your friends until they don’t know what to say anymore. It’s being so consumed by what you don’t have that you make other people feel guilty for what they do have.

The Ugly is when your disappointment becomes everyone else’s problem.

And here’s what makes it worse: The Ugly gets witnessed.

You might think you’re just processing. You might tell yourself you’re allowed to feel your feelings. And you are — you are allowed to feel disappointed, to grieve what you don’t have, to struggle with watching others receive what you’re waiting for.

But there’s a difference between feeling it and inflicting it.

When you complain to your family, they hear it. When you’re dismissive to a friend, they feel it. When you make a face, roll your eyes, change the subject, refuse to engage with someone’s joy — they notice.

The Ugly doesn’t stay private. It shows up in rooms. It colors relationships. It becomes something people remember.

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What Happens When People Have Seen Your Ugly?

This is the part no one talks about.

Once people have seen your Ugly, they know it’s in you. They know you’re capable of it. And you can’t undo that knowing.

Maybe they started tiptoeing around you. Maybe they hesitated before sharing their own good news, wondering if you could handle it. Maybe they learned to downplay their joy because your bitterness made celebrating feel awkward.

Maybe you became someone people had to manage.

That’s a hard thing to sit with — the idea that your struggle made you difficult to be happy around. That your disappointment took up so much space that other people made themselves smaller to accommodate it.

I don’t say this to shame anyone. I say it because I’ve been there. I’ve been the person people managed. I’ve been the reason someone else tempered their excitement.

And I hate that.

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So What Happens When You Finally Get The Thing?

Here’s where I am right now: I have the thing.

The thing I wanted. The thing I was bitter about not having. The thing I complained about, vented about, made ugly comments about.

I have it now.

And I thought getting it would feel simple. I thought it would just be joy — finally, finally, after all that waiting. I thought the getting would erase the waiting.

But it doesn’t work that way.

Because the people who watched me be bitter? They’re still here. They remember. And now I have to figure out how to show up with joy in front of people who watched me show up with resentment for so long.

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How Do You Celebrate After Being So Bitter?

This is the question I keep circling:

How do you let yourself be happy about something when you know you made other people feel bad about having the same thing?

Part of me wants to just move forward. Hope everyone forgot. Pretend the bitter version of me didn’t exist and trust that people will just be happy for me now.

But they didn’t forget. And pretending feels dishonest.

Another part of me wants to apologize — to go back to every person whose joy I diminished and say I’m sorry.

But here’s the problem: How do you apologize without it sounding like “Sorry I was mean, but now that I got mine, we’re good”?

That’s not what I mean. But I’m terrified that’s how it will land.

How do you say “I was wrong to act that way” without it seeming like you’re only saying it because you finally got what you wanted? How do you acknowledge your Ugly without the apology feeling self-serving?

I don’t have a clean answer.

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Can You Be Happy About Something You Were Ugly About?

Here’s the tension I’m holding:

I want to be happy. I want to celebrate. I want to feel the joy I was waiting so long to feel.

But I also know I wasn’t kind during the waiting. I know I made it harder for other people to be happy around me. I know there are people who might hear my good news and think, Oh, so NOW you’re fine with it?

And they wouldn’t be wrong to think that.

So am I allowed to be happy? Am I allowed to celebrate fully when I know I didn’t let other people celebrate fully around me?

I think the answer is yes — but not without doing some work first.

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What Does The Work Look Like?

I’m learning this in real time, so I don’t have it all figured out. But here’s what I think the work looks like:

I think:

It looks like going back. Not back in time — I can’t undo what I said or how I made people feel. But back to the people I affected.

It looks like saying to the people I complained to: I was bitter, and I put that on you, and I’m sorry.

It looks like saying to the people whose celebrations I made awkward: I made your joy about my lack, and that wasn’t fair to you.

It looks like owning it without expecting absolution. Not waiting for them to say “it’s fine” or “I didn’t notice.” Just naming what I did and letting them respond however they respond.

The work also looks like something harder: sitting with the fact that getting the thing didn’t make me not-Ugly. The Ugly was in me the whole time. Having what I wanted doesn’t erase the way I acted when I didn’t have it. It just means I don’t have the excuse of lacking it anymore.

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Where Do You Go From Here?

I’m writing this from the middle.

I haven’t made all the apologies yet. I haven’t had all the hard conversations. I’m still figuring out how to hold joy and regret at the same time — how to be genuinely happy about what I have while genuinely sorry for how I acted when I didn’t have it.

It’s uncomfortable. It’s messy. The timing will always look suspicious. The apologies might not land the way I hope.

But I think the alternative is worse.

The alternative is pretending. Hoping people forget. Celebrating on top of wreckage I never acknowledged. And that’s not real joy — that’s just performance.

I don’t want to perform happiness. I want to actually feel it. And I think that means getting honest about my Ugly first.