Who IS that Bitch, Anyway?
Who does she think she is? What a sarcastic bitch! Does she think people give a toss about what she has to say? Does she think she’s smart? I’m embarrassed for her! Shame on her for not caring what people think, for instigating and making people uncomfortable. Shame on her!
I completely understand the phrase, “the devil made me do it.” The writing I do makes my hands feel like the dummy in the ventriloquist’s lap saying outrageous things that makes the audience laugh and cringe at the same time. The dummy says all we want to say—but don’t, because we’re nice people. I don’t even know what my hands are writing half the time. I’m a surprised parent feeling both pride in, and shame of, the misbehaving child.
For many years I behaved as if I were the one at fault when people hurt me. I let people hurt me and I still felt responsible for it… and apologized! I let people walk all over me because I’d learned that I had to be nice.
Things women say because they need to be nice:
“I had sex with him because he was expecting it.”
“I married him because breaking up with him would hurt his feelings.”
“I didn’t respond to his harassing me because I didn’t want to be rude.”
That’s how I was raised. That’s how I am. Except in my writing.
I don’t recognize that woman who comes out in my writing. My words are like vigilantes taking justice into my own hands: I shall not be nice anymore! Nice is the vanilla predictable routine of a Stepford wife who drowns her frustrations at night in a bottle of Skinnybitch vodka. (It has to be Skinnybitch: God forbid my unhappiness should be made manifest via a muffin top!) Maybe I’ll even purge all I ate for dinner as well, just to make sure I maintain the “nice” façade.
The “Nice Me” who speaks has to keep all the frustrations and bitterness bottled up. The “Bitch Me” who writes doesn’t have any such inhibitions. “Being nice” is an illness, a malady that takes away my voice and my soul. I’d rather be a lively bitch than a boring nice girl. I’ve been nice all my life—and that came close to destroying my soul and my life. I don’t want to be nice, I want to be alive.
Maybe someday the Nice Me and the Bitch Me will merge. That’s what we all works towards, isn’t it? But for the moment, it’s enough to be grateful that they’re both there.
