A while back my dad gave me a compliment. He said, “You know, if there was ever anyone I knew who was capable of killing another human being, it was you…but you’re different now.”
“Huh? Ah, thanks?”
I shrugged it off, thought of it as a funny story, and took credit for my personal growth.
Then I got a Porsche. A 2004 911 C4S Cabriolet to be precise; white, black leather interior, 320 hp @ 6800 rpm, 0-60 in 5 seconds, and a kick-ass sound system with 11 Bose speakers, to be even more precise.
Nowadays that doesn’t sound like a supercar but comparing numbers is entirely different from sitting in the belly of the beast, wrapping your hands around the leather steering wheel, feeling the grumbling power hunched behind you reach into your chest and send your heart racing.
There are faster cars and more powerful cars, but nothing moves the soul like a Porsche.
Every time I drove that car, and it was my daily transportation, I told myself that today I would drive like a normal person. No 0-60 tests when I was the first car at a red light with the wide-open road ahead of me. No dropping it into third gear at 60 mph on the freeway so I could feel the trust of g-forces shove me into my seat making me gasp, then giggle. No revving the engine to hear and feel all those horses gathering power, begging me to let them run.
With this car speed was a weapon I could wield at my bidding. I didn’t have to wait for an opening, I could make one.
I only scared myself a few times. Not loss of control scared, more like, damn that’s a lot of power.
I never could drive that car like a normal person, the power was too tempting, too available, too right there in my hands. And this, after a while, became exhausting.
I recognize weaknesses right away.
In a Tae Kwon Do class I was paired with a black belt for a sparring match. I was a yellow belt. I knocked her out. It was her fault, for a moment she dropped her hands and leaned forward. I saw the opening. Fwap, a roundhouse to the side of the head and down she went. I didn’t feel bad. I was surprised that it worked. She had the senior belt, she had years of training, she made a mistake. I didn’t let it slide.
See what I mean? I’m not a psychopath. I looked it up.
My mom gave me a compliment. She told a friend of hers, in front of me, “If you want sympathy you don’t go to Kiki, but if you have to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, she’s the one you want at your side.”
Huh, thanks?
Once a neighbor’s Rottweiler got out of their yard and stalked across our driveway hunting my unsuspecting Cattle Dog. I charged out of the garage and grabbed a huge branch from the ground.
“Get out! No!” I barked.
I made myself big and waved the stick menacingly. The dog, all 120 pounds of him stopped, confused and mildly impressed.
“Go home!” I yelled and swung the stick as hard as I could. In the middle of the swing, the branch broke in half and dropped to the ground. I froze. He froze. We both stared at the top of the stick lying on the pavement. I was defenseless. Our eyes met, his eyebrows rose, and in a split second, I knew that he knew, that I knew I had nothing.
I let out a primal scream. The scream of every mother who has ever faced down an enemy to protect her loved ones and charged the rotty.
He tucked his stubby tail and turned for home thinking “That bitch be crazy”.
Passionate defense of loved ones is a noble endeavor, a good characteristic, and quite perfectly, the switch that can turn a passionate person into a villain. I have that switch. If one of the people I love more than life itself were to die an unjust death, I fear I would flip that switch to “fuck it” and leave it there. I’d wear all black, sleep all day, and patrol the streets at night with my Katana beheading cockroaches and making jewelry from their shiny bodies.
I have not been pushed to the edge of madness by losing someone…yet.
I decided to sell the Porsche. To be fair my husband and I decided to sell almost everything we owned and move to Costa Rica so either way the Porsche was going to go. I was relieved. It’s a lot of responsibility to have that much power.
The way of a real power is love. That takes having an open heart and a willingness to be hurt because loving people always hurts. It feels wrong and my soul argues with my spirit.
It’s easier to be a villain. To wrap your heart in layers of black anger and pretend that the pain doesn’t bother you. To use that power to blast your way through life, stomping on the accelerator, roaring away from the crowds, alone with the chaos of the wind and the thunder of six-hundred horses.
I believe we come into this world with preloaded software and it can be hard to rewire the programming. I am a fighter, I was wired that way. I’ve spent most of my life pushing that part down, throttling it by the throat until it played dead at my feet.
I am learning a new way, slowly, gently.
I don’t think I will become the villain, but you never know.
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