on being spiteful

The thing about being spiteful is you really only end up hurting yourself. Put down the can of Spite.

I think one of the main reasons why I have achieved what I have achieved is not something to be proud of. I am a person who works better when I am trying to prove something. I am a person that works harder because I don’t ever want to be a victim of anything.

I am a spiteful person.

When somebody does something to you and you get hurt, I think you get to choose whether you use that moment to propel you forward or to set you back.

I, like most people, have been burned a lot. By friends, by boyfriends, by coworkers, and family. But I don’t know whether how I handle it is entirely healthy. I tend to internalize things and out of spite I decide that I need to work hard to prove that I didn’t deserve that treatment.

I have a family member that lives to bring people down. They don’t put any effort into their own wellbeing or personal growth but they love to bash everyone else and judge everyone else for their actions. They lie, cheat, steal, and use other people and never care at all about how it effects the people that love them.

You could get recognized for something cool at work or at school, and they’d say it only happened because you’re a suckup or you got lucky. They know how to push your buttons just right because it’s the only thing they’re good at, the only skill they’ve applied themselves to. And I could write a whole other essay about how shitty saying someone is only successful because they “got lucky” is.

My response to that kind of behavior has been to prove that I can and will be better than that. I worked twice as hard, literally at two jobs, while they did drugs and insulted the family members we lived with. I got accepted to every college I applied for while they got denied, and I felt good.

I know you aren’t supposed to compare yourself to other people, and that’s my biggest flaw. For all of my virtues, for every time that I don’t lie, cheat, or steal, I make myself feel empowered by comparing myself to the people I know that do.

I dated someone that struggled to get a career doing what he loved, and my response after he dumped me was to get my dream job. Instead of working through the pain of a breakup, I worked for an entire year to make sure that I was nowhere in the same league of success as him. I wish I would have taken the time to grieve, to be sad and angry, because those emotions came later. They all flooded back like fresh wounds after I got what I wanted, and I kept cyberstalking him to make sure that he was still a loser and that what I did was worth it.

I thought that if he ever saw me again or looked at my social media profiles, he would see how much better I was doing and it would hurt and annoy him. I want my family member to look at my life and see that their life doesn’t shine as brightly because they are a pitch black pit of negativity. For all the pain they cause my family and me, I want to send it back harder with my success.

I hate flakiness and when my friends don’t follow through with their plans, so I set weird timelines for not looking at their snapchat stories, not replying to their texts, and not making plans with them. I asked you to go with me to an event two weeks ahead of time and you cancelled the day of? See you in six months, and don’t expect a text back from me until after I went to that cool new place you’ve been wanting to go to.

If I wasn’t so spiteful maybe I could stop and slow down and enjoy the life I have built. Maybe I would have more friends and be less successful, and maybe that would be okay. Maybe I’d be happier?

I’ve been trying to work on finding other reasons to push myself. I have been trying to stop comparing myself to other people and make time to stop and appreciate what I already have.

Being a spiteful person is mentally taxing. Because I don’t say spiteful things, or lash out at people to hurt them, in fact I really don’t think anyone would call me a spiteful person at all. But I do it all internally, and at the end of the day the only person who gets harmed is me. It’s very passive aggressive.

This is hard to write, and harder to come to terms with. I hope someone else out there feels like this and has a strategy to battle it. How do you deal with comparing yourself to others, and how do you motivate yourself in a healthy way?

on pink coffin-shaped nails

I think, like horoscopes, that there is a little bit of all of this in every woman. What part of your personality do your nails highlight?

Getting your nails done gives you control, power, and a show of your individualism.

You pick the color, the shape, the length, the medium. You pick based on how you feel, what you want the world to know about you, what you want the cashier at the store to see when you hand them your payment.

What do your nails say about you?

Image courtesy of Mashable Infographics.

Let’s start at the beginning. What shape are you going for today?

Square and squoval nails are straightforward. I see them on a businesswoman with a family, someone who cares about herself but doesn’t want to sacrifice the functionality of her hands. A mom who wants to be able to play catch with her kids without breaking a nail, and types on a keyboard all day on the office without drawing too much attention to the clacking of the keys.

Round, oval, and almond nails are for old souls. A girl that wears a red lip as an accessory to any outfit. She’s refined, well-spoken, and always orders the same drink at the bar (with a straw of course). She has an animal that she’s very close to, and animals like her. She likes when things look nice, and comes off as organized and put together but her car is a mess.

Coffin nails are for women who talk with their hands. She gets excited easily, and has a few things that she is very passionate about. She likes to show off a little, can be called dramatic, but she makes the best secret keeper. This is the girl that breaks hearts but only a little bit on purpose.

Stiletto nails are for that bitch. She watches beauty tutorials on YouTube, or maybe she has her own content channel. She always smells good and gives everybody advice that she never takes herself. She’s always aware of the newest trends, but she only chooses to follow things that suit her. She definitely has a tattoo somewhere, and it probably has a cool meaning behind it.

Image courtesy of COSCELIA Nail Varnish.

Time to pick your color. There’s always a big book or key ring of plastic nails to flip through and this decision has heavy implications about who you are.

A solid red is sexy. It says everything you need it to. There’s a power behind every hand gesture, and a promise. Red reminds me of the lady from the movie Holes that painted her nails with snake venom.

A solid white is for a girl that is funny on Twitter, but pretty calm in real life. She takes a lot of pictures. White nails look good every day of the year, but they also need to be refreshed more often. It’s expensive to keep up but it’s worth the luxury.

Fun colors like teal, purple, color-changing show that you like to have fun. If you can get your nails done every two weeks you might as well try every color. You probably get the newest drink at Starbucks just to try it. Fearless.

Getting one sparkly nail evokes a little bit of fun, but it’s like a little secret. Catch me if you can. Getting a full set of sparkly nails is wild and I don’t trust you but I bet you own either two disco balls or two diamonds. The B.D.E. of a woman with a full set of sparkly nails is off the charts.

A girl that goes in with a design has anxiety. She took a screenshot of nails she spent an hour going through Pinterest choosing, but she didn’t trust the internet connection in the nail salon to pull up her picture so she screenshotted it and while waiting for her name to be called she had the picture pulled up and made sure the screen wouldn’t lock when she showed it to the nail tech.

Who are you this time? I think, like horoscopes, that there is a little bit of all of this in every woman. But what nails you choose say a lot about what part of your personality you want to highlight at that time.

This week I am medium-length, pink coffin-shaped gel acrylics. And it feels good.

sudden repulsion syndrome

Sudden Repulsion Syndrome is what happens when a small decision or behavior puts an abrupt end to a budding relationship.

I get fight or flight but for relationships.

Like I loveloveloveloved maybe one or two people in my life, and out of nowhere I’d wake up one day and be so disgusted by them. The day before I was writing them in my diary and daydreaming about their cologne, and then suddenly I would gag at the thought of one guy’s laugh, at another guy’s little moles.

I think my least favorite part about myself is how I can never decide on anything but I always know how I feel about someone because my brain sends some strong chemicals 3000% too quick. I don’t know I’m over a relationship until I’m physically repelled by the person I thought I was happy about.

Or I’m 3000% the other way, and the norepinephrine, dopamine, serotonin are like little butterflies trying to make their way out of my throat while I profess some kind of undying love.

I’ll fight so hard or I’ll run so fast, and neither of us is ever ready for that.