Escaping the Vampire

I once hung out with a vampire, my frenemy. She wasn’t doing well until I was doing a little worse.  Like the pretty girl who hangs out with ugly girls, to assure her superiority.  She placed people in rigid categories. People she admired and those that were inferior.  I was in the latter.

Very quick to recall my shortcomings.  Lightning speed to put me in my place.  She questioned my qualifications after she discovered that I earned an opportunity she missed.  This occurred out of the blue, and in the middle of an unrelated conversation. She edited compliments I received.  When someone once complemented my hairstyle, as soon as I said “thank you,” my vampire swoops in plaintively, “Her hair looks the same as [Angie’s]!”

Many times I left her presence feeling indignant and frustrated.  I told myself that I was going to prove to her that I was right.  I was going to win her approval.  I read a Rap on Race, a book of a conversation between Margaret Mead and James Baldwin.  They stated this principle within, “if you define yourself in terms of someone else, you’re destined to try to control them.”  If you define yourself as superior to Person X, you’ll get antsy when Person X gets better because then you’ll lose your identity.  Then you’ll start manipulating Person X to put them in their place, so that you can securely stay in yours.

Looking back, my vampire wasn’t evil.  I was a blood letter, willingly exposing my neck.  Finally, I had a coup.  There was no silver bullets, mallet pounding, nor garlic involved.  Not even a confrontation.  Just my no longer taking the initiative to make contact, and she returned the favor.  When my next social gathering came and went without her presence, and I did not feel guilty, I knew I was safe.  My vampire was transformed into a bat, a dark silhouette against the bright, full moon – getting smaller and smaller until it disappeared.

(reposted from previous blog)