Better than Revenge

We've all been there . . . When you are in a good heart and mind space, life feels like an enternity of making love on a sun-denched window sill beside a life-sized old-fashioned brass key that, um, well, that unlocks all the past pains in your heart, setting you free to love absolutely everyone around you. Like when you're drunk.

And then, BAM, suddenly, for one reason or another, something happens that makes you feel like life is an enternity of suckage with only a sickening combination of shame, humiliation, rage, disappointment and grief for company 24/7.

In this state, you'll do ANYTHING to discharge the pain as far away from your aching body and tortured mind as possible . . .


. . . In your head, you line up all your internal demons as well as real-life enemies and take aim with your best weapon: revenge fantasies . . . some of which you might even recklessly act out in real time -- like the ever popular drunk-and-dial, or the tried-and-true long, rightous and raging letter -- hitting the send button before your friends have had a chance to come to your den of insanity and chain you to a radiator until you became a human being again.

OK, OK, I do admit that sometimes revenge can be sweet . . . (and human) . . .


But it only makes you feel good temporarily. Because chances are, your revenge will hurt someone else (even if they seemed to deserve it) and pain inflicted on others always comes back to bite you in the ass, or, more accurately, in the conscience, which is not located in your head as formerly thought, but near the vicinity of your heart, which makes it more dangerous.

If you don't actually do the real work of digging deep into your soul to find out what role you play in your own unhappiness (like inviting it in), and if you don't learn to sit bravely with your pain so that you don't lash out and spread the misery, the cylce will begin again until you do learn . . .


Thankfully, there is a way to find bravery in the face of adversity. And though it may be hard to believe, you can even do this personal work without rocking on someone else's dime. (Although the expression makes a great t-shirt! Thanks, Dale!)


While learning to become responsible for your own contentment is simple, it's not necessarily easy. A friend told me the other day that his friend, who suffers from depression, was told by her therapist that happiness is a skill. This piece of information gave her hope because a skill can be learned. But it requires goal-setting and practice. As well as heavy doses of courage and faith. Not so easy when you are in the trillionth ring of hell, clawing your way up a steep bank of sadness, praying you will find a little air-conditioned hole to crawl into for eternity.


Kids, I have the recipe for the much sought-after Skill of Contentment. But before I tell you this little secret, I have to confess that one of my friends did act out a revenge fantasy once that not only brought her relief, but that still sends both of us into gales of laughter in the retelling. To my knowledge, she's never suffered a day of guilt over it. Nor should she. Her crime amounted to less than a misdemeanor. And the benefit far outweighed the cost. That time.

After being told one blissful evening that she was the love of her lover's life and that he wanted to spend an eternity with her, she was awoken the next morning by said lover who informed her that sometime between midnight and 7 am he realize he no longer loved her and wanted her to leave. Immediately.

To help herself deal with the shock and pain, this friend did something truly innovative. She broke into her freshly exed ex's airline account and ordered him the special bland meal for people who have ulcers, in perpetuity.

Although we all indulge our revenge fantasies when we're in pain, and the fantasies do serve an important function as long as they remain fantasies, a far more powerful antidote to hurt is the old cliché of conjuring the sun-drenched brass key that will open your heart.

Here's a for instance: recently I discovered that an ex from years ago had hotly pursued a close friend the day after dumping me. She would have none of it, of course, because my friends are pillars of love and integrity, but that did not change the fact that he was an ethic-less, heartless beast. I was consumed by a sense of victimization for an entire afternoon upon hearing this news, and, true to human form, I concocted all kinds of revenge fantasies that made bland airplane food seem like a lifetime of free filet mignon at North 44.

But then I was looking through my photographs a few days later and I came upon this one:


This ex hated doing dishes. At his home he had a dishwasher and a cleaning lady. But when he was dating me, he was subjected to my single sink located in my cleaning lady-free apartment. Yet when I made dinner, he always insisted on doing the dishes. And he never complained. In fact, he turned the job into an art, creating beautiful sculptures out of that which he hated. They touched me deeply. Which is why I photographed them.

This ex had what I would call a painful childhood. He had not been properly loved by either parent, and so no one had taught him how to love anyone else, especially not himself. Yet his dish sculptures were the tenderest gestures I'd ever seen. So, if he chased my friend, it was truly because he had no friends. Literally. I was pretty much his only friend at the time. And my girlfriend was the next best thing I guess, since he knew her through me. He was lonely. Deeply. How could I want to wreak revenge on someone already so filled with pain?

OK, he was a big jerk to me. But I'm the lucky one because I have people like this in my life.

World, meet Sara. She is the miseur-en-scene and photographer of the Star Wars action figures above. But she is so much more. She is the woman who made me laugh for four hours straight one night as she drew a picture of me that looked like a cross between a pheasant and a crone (OK we were high, but still). She once made me an animal out of tinfoil that looked like a rat and, strangely enough, also like a bison, which is why I called it RatBison and proudly displayed it on my coffee table. Whenever she came to dinner, she brought me flowers from the flower shop where she worked. And often posed with them in charming ways.

I wish I had spent more time with Sara when I lived in Montreal. I LOVE Sara. Yesterday, when I thought I'd be sad for an eternity, she wrote me a faith-restoring e-mail filled with the kind of compassionate honesty the makes you believe in trusting again. Seriously, all she has to do is draw a smiley face on her thumb and stick it up to the camera during a Skype video chat and I'm done for.