There is a girl from my church who is at least ten years younger than me, maybe 10-13, and as a small kid she looked so much like I did at her age.  My family, of course, nicknamed her mini-me.  Though Mini-J might have made more sense, we were living in a post-Austin Powers world.

Her family was at church for the Christmas Eve service tonight and she was there all made up in a short lacy dress and jean jacket.  You see, somewhere around puberty our gene patterns changed drastically.  Her hair never dulled, it is a saucy bright red.  She is still as pale as I am and she has long, long legs like me, but otherwise she looks like a fantasy.  She is skinny, but not gaunt, with  a slender face, a cute slightly pixie nose, small chin, long wavy full hair.  Kind of exactly how I wanted puberty to treat me.  No wide hips, no round face, no intense breakouts that only birth control could stop.

Whenever I see her, and it's at church mind you, I think mean, cruel thoughts.  Mostly about myself.  I don't see her and want to pay her a compliment.  I see her and I see what I'll never be.  Or something like that.  There is just a lot of sudden self doubt and often self hate.

It reminds me of how much evil still lives in me, no matter how often I try to be good.  I was such a good kid, or I tried to be, and I tried to do the right thing and not be bad.  Kid logic, so simple, so often so spot on.  But I think there is something about being a teenage girl that just twists you up inside and brings out your worst.  It's not easy for a girl to go through puberty and stay pure, hold on to all that goodness, and not end up a little evil in the process.

I used to apply this logic to my relationship with my ex.  I kept seeing myself as the villain.  Like I could only do things to hurt him and I wasn't a good influence or a good enough person for him or like he was bound to hate me because, get this, because he did in my dreams and so that obviously meant I was a bad person and he felt like that in real life too.  I was a little too evil to be good.  I used to beat myself down real bad, and I can't explain why.  I tried in therapy, but there was no peaceful resolution to that feeling for me.  It's just, I did do crappy things.  There are several aspects I needed to work on.  No one's perfect.  And I don't want to forget the mistakes I made, because I don't want to make them again.

Emotions really are so damn overwhelming in dreams.  The fact that these false memories have the ability to haunt me in my waking life drives me crazy.  My imagination is not as pure and good as it used to be.  I think I definitely soiled that as a teenager.  My imagination doesn't run out though.  If you're worried about the bad that can come, my imagination can calculate all the ways it could be worse. 

So at church I'm praying on how to be better, how to tame down my evil, sinful self, and be a better person to others and myself and what can I say?  God doesn't talk to me.  My prayers aren't that powerful.  I just know that I can't stop trying.  That happiness is key.  I need to figure out if what I think will make me happy will be worth everything else it could set off.

Find the good.  Be  the good.  Do good.

Labels: be the good, find the good, how many secrets can you keep