Heroes and Villains

The past few days I've been ill at home w/ a viral infection doing nothing more than watching tv, eating fruit and drinking water and gatorade.

I saw a couple of interesting things on tv in that time. First was the advertisement for the upcoming third season of Heroes. This "volume" is called "villains" and the add shows not only the known villains we've met in seasons one and two, new ones, and a few of our favorite heroes as possible villains. Because in every hero there could be a villain.

Then I caught on the history channel a show about Batman and the "reality" of his gizmos and gadgets, his suit, but also his personality and those of his enemies. Someone made an interesting point. That both Batman and the villains have had a traumatic event and while Bruce Wayne/Batman decides that this injustice must never perpetrated on another, the villains in a similar moment decide that this injustice is an excuse for payback, a license to hurt others as they've been hurt. They compared Batman to his famous villains and showed that if weren't for a small choice he'd be like any one of them.

I'm not saying I'm a hero or a villain. But I do always feel like there's these two opposing people inside of me. There's the one that likes herself the way she is, her body, her interests, her looks, her brain, her talents. This one has good self-esteem and knows what she deserves, can stand up for herself. And there's the girl that hates herself who is never good enough no matter what she does, no matter what she says, how hard she tries. She's never skinny enough, tone enough, fast enough, strong enough. She doesn't look good in her clothes, she's not talented, or funny, or interesting and people aren't interested in her. This one takes what people give her and accepts the crumbs if that's all it is. There's the girl who values honesty, and fairness and wants to treat every one with respect next to the girl who's so good at lying, and hiding what she does or feels. One one hand I'm the shy, quiet girl who doesn't know what to do with attention from people even if she got it, and on the other I'm a girl who wears leopard print dance shoes and short skirts.

I wonder if I put my standards for other people too high. If I expect them to be all of one or the other. I keep coming back to B being a bad person, a bad christian, a bad friend. But undeniably she is fun to be around, fun to go out with. But being fun doesn't mean being good. But not being 100% good doesn't make them bad either. I guess when it comes right down to it I judge it by two things - things that I try to live by also - and that's choice and hypocrisy. With one exception as a child, I can't remember ever choosing to hurt another person. It has been the unfortunate outcome of some decisions, but I can't remember it ever being my intent. And I feel that what ever B says, when she knows that being unfaithful will her hurt her boyfriend, then being unfaithful is a choice to hurt him. I also dislike hypocrisy. I don't eat meat because to me it is hypocritcal to treat a cat humanely and eat the cow that was treated inhumanely. We live by laws that say you must treat your companion animal in such a way, but none that say we have to treat cows, chickens, lambs etc that way. Its the reason I'm becoming vegan too - in the end I saw being only a strict vegetarian as being hypocritical as well - I won't eat the cow, but I'll eat the cheese that was made from a cows milk. And, no, I don't trust government regulations on "free range" and "organic" so I won't be buying those either. What I hate most of all is a religious hypocrit. I know it's from the way I was raised and the strict christian upbringing I had (and then rejected - I choose to be a good person because I respect my fellow man, not because christ is going let me into heaven if I behave). But to those who profess to being religious, to being christian, and following a certain set of guidelines, I hold them to those standards. B to me does not live a christian life. Not by the standards she herself spouts. I'm sure she thinks it's fine, because afterall jesus forgives, confession clears the soul and conscience freeing it up for more sin later. I think people like to forget that little catch about being sorry for what you've done. And how sorry can you be if you keep doing it?

I am considering calling her once she's moved back home - just once - not to get everything off my chest - although that would feel so good - but I'm sure it would hurt her to know what a lousy friend I think she is - and I don't like to hurt people intentionally. I just want to leave her a voicemail. I want to say: have a happy life at home, get some counseling before you get married, figure out why you are pulling this bullshit on someone you're supposed to love or be in love with, and then when you're really and truely ready get married if you still want to. And then I want to say: but don't every tell me again when you cheat, I'm washing my hands of it, I'm not your confessor to lay your problems at my feet to carry so you can go on and feel better releaved of your burden, I'm done. The funny thing is I wouldn't be doing it for her. I really want it for her fiance. Sure he knows what he's getting into, but for him, I want B to be a better person. Someone worthy of all of his forgiveness.

Of course the villainous side of me doesn't want to do that at all. The villainous side of me is so scared that if B were single she'd come back here. She'd start dating J. or that they would meet up for clandestine romantic vacations. My villainous side has a fantasy whereby I become J's girlfriend (the how is not worked out in the fantasy, but I think it has something to do with his brother telling him he'd be an idiot if he didn't take me out on at least one date) and when April rolls around for B's wedding. I say, hey, lets go together. Lets show up and show her that I won because the villainous side of me wants payback, wants to hurt her the way she hurt me, take something that she liked and make it mine.

But it's just a fantasy. I really do plan to keep my villain securely locked inside.