Vindictive Vindication

The problem with being a vindictive asshole is that you get type-cast as a vindictive asshole in all aspects of your life. A life, which I can say, is all the more worth living with the spice of spite sprinkled overtop. That's the thing though. Like a person who likes raisins, as soon as you out yourself, people expect you want that shit everywhere. It’s not… necessarily true?

I would label myself as a very passively vindictive person. Taking small joys in the misfortunes of people who have wronged me in my past. The idea that ‘karma’s going to get you’ isn’t a new thought, and its all the more satisfying when it does. There's something about the justice of it that has always really intrigued me, the darkness of it too.

I could blame fairy tales or Disney for not showing the reality that sometimes the villain just gets away. The thought that a story isn’t over until the bad guy gets caught or dies or, in some cases, finally sees that they are the jerk everyone wants to get rid of. It’s almost impossible for the self-absorbed to see the fallacy in what they do. And isn’t the point that everyone just thinks they’re the main character of their own story and then their shitty, shitty behaviour is justified? I guess that’s why I love stories so much because they don’t echo reality.

So what does this all have to do with being new, with ‘starting fresh’ if you will? Maybe it’s the realization that we are not, in fact, Cinderella. The ugly, evil step-sisters don’t have their eyes pecked out by birds and their toes shaved off by the evil step-mother. Maybe it has something to do with the idea that being petty is ‘wrong’ and just makes you ‘negative.’ I don’t think it’s that at all.

We spend so much time trying to banish toxicity from our lives. Isn’t it’s perfectly normal to be upset. To experience, what has been labelled as, ‘negative emotion.’ There’s a little piece in all of us that wants to see our villains fail. If I want to daydream about my ex’s locks freezing then can’t I? Who said that grief and recovery were linear anyway?

I’ve been told that I need to evict these people from my head. That their living ‘rent free’ in my skull is harmful to me and the people around me. The problem is that every time I try it reinforces their stay. Their metaphorical lease gets renewed.

It is true that one day I will forget about these people, these ‘villains’ as I’ve called them. But there is the time in between being hurt and being ok and being better and there's the time after that too. Sometimes being bitter is just all you can be. They say to ‘be the better person,’ or ‘turn the other cheek,’ but even when I do that I do it with spite in my heart. I want people who have hurt me to know I’m better than them… but the fact is that right here and right now I’m not. We’re lying if we say intent doesn’t matter. So isn’t the purpose defeated then?

Understanding our own emotion is hard. It’s so often that I find myself curled up on my bed under blankets feeling overwhelmed and full of ‘negativity.’ Going outside eclipsed by the fear of powerful rage and hurt exploding onto anyone I happen to see on the street. I don’t want to be the one friend everyone avoids. Then the feeling wells up in my gut, unprompted and certainly unwelcome.

Fear? No, that’s not it.

Anxiety? Also not what this is. It is accompanied by anxiety though so it must be close.

Shame. I feel shame.

I feel ashamed of myself for being vindictive, for being naive enough to believe in the integrity of fairy stories. That I am, in this, doing the exact same thing as those self-absorbed assholes: seeing myself as the protagonist of this story. Aren’t I supposed to be selfless and giving in all aspects of life, while simultaneously also putting myself first? Isn’t putting myself first allowing myself to feel and have emotion even when it’s ‘negative,’ or in my case, vindictive?

I can’t be like the people that are hardened to everything that happens to them. Its the dichotomy of society telling us to be vulnerable but also never show that we are hurt. The only things we are told we can feel outwardly are what has been labled as ‘positive.’ Isn’t that the point of this? If we shut all perceived ‘negativity’ out we become strong? Desirable?

I reject this Ideal. Reject it whole heartedly and with everything I have. I don’t feel particularly ‘positive’ right now.

This year I work towards feeling however I need to. Allowing things to enter and leave freely, of their own will. Even if that manifests in wanting a special someone to slip on their way to work.