The Secret Life of B****es

No, no, no, not “The Secret Life of Bees”. The Secret Life of B****es! No Dakota Fanning in this category. I think.

I’ve worked with quite a number of men and women over the past ten years, and unfortunately, a few… how shall I put it? Well, I had the dishonor of working for some major b****es. Yes, although those are asterisks, you all know what I mean. Nasty tempered, mean mugging, snotty, back stabbing, lying rhymes-with-witches people. And I say people, because plenty of guys aren’t just dogs, no they are b****es.

Now, if I offended some with my use of letters and symbols to clearly communicate a bad word, my apologies. You can stop reading and go pray for me. Then click the tag on the homepage for “Christ the King”. Or un-bunch your panties and keep reading. I’d suggest you do both.

Anyway, I was talking to a co-worker this morning about how negatively some people have talked about my transition to natural hair. Me: “Yeah, you should’ve heard how people were talking to me! One person said ‘I’ll bring in a hot comb to get THAT fixed for you'”. Her: “WHAT? They said that about your hair? They had the nerve to call your hair “THAT” as if there’s something wrong with it? With you? Hmph! Well, you’re too nice. I would’ve told that b**** off!” I laughed and went about my day.

But some time early this afternoon, pre-lunch but after my morning cup of joe, I found myself thinking about that b****. And all the other b****es I’ve known. And admitted to myself how quite a few times, like Lil’ Kim, I could be a Queen B, too.

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I remember sitting in the stairwell by the back door of Trinity Christian Academy in tears. I was twelve, a seventh grader in Pastor Todd’s class, and I was miserable. My parents were fighting at home, no one really liked me, I was too short and flat-chested and on that day, ugly. Not on the outside, like I believed, but in the inside. So when Nadia Montano, beautiful, popular, and perfect came walking by, and asked me if I was okay, I snapped. “Like YOU care,” I said coldly. Her face fell. Then looked shock. She turned and walked out muttering under her breath about how she wouldn’t ask me that again. Someone else said, “Who does she think she is? Eww.” Finally, when all the pretty, perfect and popular girls and their cute boys had passed, I snuck into the bathroom and cried.

I didn’t really cry because of all the “flaws” I mentioned before, but more because I knew I was dead wrong. Nadia had never done a darn thing to me. In fact, unlike some of the girls I went to school with, she never called me “flat-chested”, “loser” or “nerd”- at least not to my face. She had complimented my skills in drawing, my hair and my smile. My tears were of shame.

This incident stuck out in my head because it was one of the first times I can remember lashing out at someone (other than a sibling) who had done nothing to me simply because I was in a bad mood. And instead of feeling relief or justification since I was going through so much, I felt worse. I had behaved like a mean girl, a little b****.

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“Oh, I’m a B****? I AM? Well, I’ll be the best B**** you’ll ever know,” I said, slamming down the phone. And then I cried. I wasn’t that girl. That type of girl who threw out that type of word at a guy who thought it was okay to claim love for me yet call me that word. Yet, somehow, I was that girl.

I was 22, fresh out of college and getting played by a guy who wasn’t even my boyfriend. Mind games, creepy, self-image destroying mind games. I knew he was so wrong for me. He had said that from jump (and by the way, people, if a guy or girl says “You Know I’m No Good” like Amy Winehouse, just take their word for it, they aren’t and you DO KNOW it).

But I sat there, tears streaming mad, hurt at being called a b****. Then thinking dark, nasty thoughts. “If he thinks I’m a b****… well, I can be THAT!” I pondered driving to his house and screaming at him, cursing. Maybe I could key his car? Or flatten his tires? A contorted, Grinch-like smirk crossed my lips as I replayed every vengeful R&B video I had ever seen through my head thinking of ways to prove my b****iness. “I wish I could crash my motorcycle through his window like Pink!” Uh, never mind that I had no motorcycle and “his window” was actually his grandmother’s. So there you go…

It was a phone call that set me off, too, but there was no cute b-baller in wait to not take me home.

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That’s the thing about being a b****. Far from being glamorous, it’s really very ugly. To maintain the level of anger and self-conceit to remain b****y, one must exert a ridiculous amount of energy. You plot and plan and stew and simmer, getting worked hot up into a heated hatred- just to cool and harden into fragility. So fragile that the least little thing, a comment from a classmate or a stupid argument with a “no good”, breaks you. Instead of showing how tough you can be, jumping off a motorcycle while it plunges into an ex’s window, a la Pink, it reveals your shattered psyche, like the shards of glass from that ruined pane.

That is the true secret of the b****. She (or he, cause come on, guys can be, too) is hurting. So she threatens to sting at a moments notice. But like actual bees, her sting is her ruin. Lash out, and in the end, she’ll pay the ultimate price.

So when you encounter a b****, don’t be drawn in to the fight. Stop and think of the flip side of her anger- the pain, the hurt. And say a prayer for her. And if you feel your stinger rising, then stop and pray for you.

It’s the strangest thing, but sometimes, b****es can become butterflies.

Believe me, I know.