You did me dirty. Why tf do you get to live a good life?

You don't get to win this round

The first thing I saw when I opened LinkedIn was their face front and center. A mutual liked an announcement about their new business venture, lopping the post right onto my feed. The last time this happened, it was them being named an honorary judge for a well-known creative award show. The time before that, yet another promotion.

If it were a better person, literally anyone else in the world, I’d be happy for them. I’d probably like, comment, even message them to share how proud I am of their accomplishments. But it was them. The only person in this lifetime who’s managed to shank me, leave me for dead, and seemingly get away with it.

Instantly, an unjustifiable rage filled my chest, and with every exhale, it felt like I was blowing fire. I cooled this anger by telling myself that nobody’s life is ever as good as it seems. That people like them are secretly miserable on the inside and probably get validation from sharing their highlight reel on social media. I try to convince myself that nobody who has ever wronged me has ended up in a better situation.

The more I sit with that, the less I believe it’s true.

While I do align with the idea that every thought, action, or intention has a corresponding outcome, it’s hard to know if there’s always an eventual karmic balancing of the scales. It’s hard to be certain that somewhere out there, the universe is keeping a ledger of wrongdoings that deserve consequence.

Sometimes bad people get to live a good life.

And if that’s true, then the story I’ve been telling myself, that my justice is just delayed, starts to look less like conviction and more like a coping mechanism designed to make the pain bearable. How else could you explain why a terrible person, one who’s the least deserving, is the one the world has chosen to continuously reward?

Maybe karma is real because it seems to find me just fine. The quiet losses, the public stumbles, the seasons of falling behind — none of that has happened to pass me by. Misfortune always has a way of finding me and never the ones who truly deserve it. Either the universe is wildly inconsistent in who it chooses to punish, or I’m not as innocent as I try to believe.

To say that I’m flawless would be a reach. I know I’m far from perfect and have committed my fair share of offenses. In middle school, I went through a mean girl era. When I’m angry, my tongue can get quite sharp. I’ve told lies that I will take to my grave. My actions have hurt people. And I know with most certainty that I’m accurately cast as the role of a villain in someone else’s story. Yet, in spite of all those things, I still consider myself to be a relatively good person who deserves good things to happen to them in this lifetime.

But I need to think that about myself.

I need to believe that I’m redeemable.

I need the world to know that my faults were flukes.

Because I am nothing like them.

The pain they caused is too unforgettable to ever be forgiven. Even if I did release them in peace, the lies they’ve told, the things they’ve said, the embarrassment they’ve caused require them to feel that same hurt and shame. They don’t get to walk away without a scratch. They don’t get to experience a pain-free existence. Yes, they may have beaten me last time, but they don’t get to win this round.

It’s not lost on me that the idea that our lives should be exponentially better than the people who hurt us isn’t just born of ego but is rooted in fear. Fear that no matter how hard we try, we’ll never surpass them. Fear that the Lord forgot about the vengeance and retribution he said he’d give on our behalf. Fear that, for them, the world still rotates without a second thought about the damage they’ve caused because they can’t be impacted by a grievance they think nothing of. That fear, the one where our suffering meant nothing to someone whose imprint changed everything, is a sting that lingers.

It’s why we promise ourselves that the get back will be crazy. That our successes will be the source of their regret. We promise to show and prove that the blows from their weapons didn’t cause us to crumble.

Those promises keep us moving forward. It forces us to show up for ourselves in ways that we may have abandoned in their presence. It lights a fire in us so intense that it demands reaction. When our rage meets an insatiable desire to prove its validity, it feeds a muse that demands our hatred to fuel its existence. It’s a hunger that mistakes revenge for freedom. It feels powerful and grand on the outside, but on the inside, it’s a shell of a victory that rings hollow.

That’s not a comeback. It’s an emotional hostage situation disguised as ambition.

When our reservoir of momentum requires us to keep the wound fresh, and our highlight reel requires us to keep their influence buried somewhere deep in the credits, it’s time to let the muse mature. To work in favor of the release without waiting for the score to be settled. To live a life that’s focused on creating toward something instead of against someone.

At some point, I have to want more for myself than wanting them to lose. I have to want my own version of a resolution even when anger isn’t the one handing it to me. I have to imagine what it would feel like to want something for no one’s benefit but my own.

Truthfully, if I subtract them from the equation, it may mean a life of full uninhibited peace. It may finally be the forgiveness I’ve been told that I should give. My only hope is that it’s more than just the emptiness between vengeance and existing without a target.

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