if we're being real: i am indeed a bitch
shadow alchemy
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If we’re being real I am indeed a bitch. A couple years ago by some random act of the universe my ex boyfriend moved in with the fuck buddy of a girl I used to work with. This girl and I had no real notable relationship besides the fact that I interviewed and suggested to hire her, I’d say “Good Morning” when she passed by me at the front desk, and like maybe one time we sat next to each other during an after school staff happy hour. She really knew nothing about me. I however, knew everything about how she dated one of the math teachers, was stringing him along, and lived with said math teacher while hooking up with someone else. It was when I told my ex to move out and this fuck buddy became his roommate that I realized what a small world it is after all.
I’ve spent most of my life being a people pleaser and accommodating for others. I’ve tried my hardest to have a resting bitch face but from my extensive experiences with weirdos and randoms feeling like they can just approach and talk to me. I have been forced to conclude that RBF just isn’t in the cards. Even when I don’t want to I can’t help but say “Hello!” with a smile or laugh at a joke I don’t actually think is funny to put someone else at ease. I worry what people think of me and want to meet the expectations of the people I respect. I’m kind hearted and over the years have realized it is a strength and not a weakness.
But like anyone I love a good gossip session. So I couldn’t wait to get the rundown on what was going on with this girl and the fuck buddy from my ex, especially since at the time I had hope that we might still be friends. When it was finally time to get the story I was ready to be engrossed and laugh at the hilarity of the situation we had all found ourselves in. “Yes!” I thought, me and my ex could bond over this silly gossip and appreciate how normal we were being about our break up versus these other people. As he began the story I was hanging on to every word. “[Name Redacted] came around the corner out of nowhere” he said laughing, acting like it had been a jump scare to see this person materialize in his new home. “I realized I remembered her from [Job Name Redacted], so I introduced myself and said oh you must know Ali!” to which she replied “Oh yeah I remember her… she’s such a bitch.”
“She’s such a bitch.” Bitch… B I T C H. For a millisecond I digested this, having never been called a bitch to my face before. I rolled the word around in my head to see how it felt. And then. I laughed. I remember him staring at me, clearly confused by my reaction. What was he expecting? Me to cry, to yell, to spout vile things back about this person? (We’ll just skip over the fact that he didn’t defend me, without him having to say it I knew in that moment he either laughed with her or stayed silent. And I know we were broken up, but even if we weren’t he wouldn’t have defended me then either.) I myself was surprised by my reaction. Of the many times I envisioned being called a bitch, laughing wasn’t what I always pictured would be my response. I suppose I also assumed that if someone ever did they’d do it to my face and it wouldn’t be my ex lover delivering the news. Maybe it was the absurdity of the whole thing that made me laugh. Or maybe I actually didn’t care. Maybe I agreed.
In fact hearing it said out loud settled something in me. Like a piece of myself clicking into place. I remember recounting this story to many people, their confused and worried faces assuring me that wasn’t true. The attempts to console me and the trepidatious expressions when I laughed over and over after my recounting. But it really didn’t bother me, didn’t even throw me for even a minute. I did wrack my brain trying to remember a time where I would have been bitch-like to this person. Maybe on days when I was hungover in the morning after drinking a bottle of wine the night before to escape my life, I didn’t always say “good morning” with a smile. Maybe sometimes I didn’t say it all. Maybe when she asked me for markers that one time while I was in the middle of several important and time sensitive tasks I should have said “In the cabinet” instead of pointing to the cabinet everyone knew had extra supplies. Either way that was her impression of me, it was her experience with me, it wasn’t my place to say she experienced it wrong.
Truth be told I am a bitch. Or I can be. While I may worry what other people think of me, I don’t actually care. I may be a people pleaser but I’m not an ass kisser, suck up, or boot licker. I’ve always put pleasing myself above others. I may want to meet the expectations of people I respect, but it doesn’t keep me from living the life I want to live. Being kind hearted doesn’t mean I’m not honest. Just because I always try to put my best foot forward doesn’t mean I always succeed. Just because I’m patient doesn’t mean I’m a push over. And over the years I’ve developed a keen sense of knowing when I’m supposed to be someone’s karma.
Oh no a nuanced and multifaceted woman! Kill her! Oh no she’s layered and knows it and embraces it! Take her down!
Most of all I’ve been a bitch my whole life for having boundaries. Never afraid to invoke them and maybe too good at cutting people off. I’ve known from day one no one wanted to deal with or expected me to have this guards around me. It was threatening to many for different reasons that I could be so firmly planted in knowing what I did or didn’t want, uneasily persuaded. Not that I was always right and probably most often the times when maybe I was wrong for the line I was drawing in the sand is when bitch was thrown at my back. Realistically, I’d assume it was more common when I was right to.
I accept that. I know that I’m not always right, that I can be cutting, that I can be dismissive. I know that I’m am right a lot of the times, I’m kind to everyone, loving to those I treasure, and generous. I exist in multitudes and because I know this of myself I know that you do too. All of us are capable of being the hero or villain in someone’s story. Making choices and decisions on who we assume to be. The fear of perception manifests in many ways and creates narratives that confine us. Or we project them on others. Whether she really said it or he made it up to try to get a reaction out of me, hearing it out loud released me from that the restriction of fear. It affirmed what I know to be true, I am a bitch. But I am many things and I’m not reliant on the perception of others to define me. Understand that. Be comfortable in that. And the alchemy can begin.