To suffer from jealousy is to experience the feeling of eternal regress or, alternatively, to see the set of all possible thoughts and actions as manifests of the single thing that one least wants to think about.
I realise this when I consider L, in tenderness and in love; and yet often terminate with the thought that one day I shall lose her. This has always been the definition of relationships in my mind - 'to be prepared to eventually relinquish.'
Jealousy is the enumeration of the ways that such a loss might be brought about, and it malfunctions internally - the irritating buzzing and flickering of a dying lightbulb; the loop of a simple computer program, folding back on itself forever; a parasite sucking the colour out of a flower as though through a straw.
To suffer from jealousy is to demand the impossible of L: don't let anyone ever think of you, or you are damned. Do not permit an autonomous other to catch your eye, or the accusations shall rain forth. It requires no infraction from L herself.
In my everyday life, I often declare my antipathy for the British state's love of curtailing civil liberties. A bite here, a mouthful there, all done in view of a supine electorate. Yet where L is concerned, I'd happily uncouple the wishes of every human and forensically examine them.
Jealousy demands the impossibility of anti-proof: demonstrate to me that he hasn't been thinking about you! Show me that the needle is not in the haystack. It is nonsensical, reducing every person, living or dead to the status of a potential threat. I recognise this, but dousing such an illogical flame is exhausting.
Yet staunch it I must, and quickly.
