Ultimately, every villain in a given chapter of my life has never been evil. Our living stories are seldom epic battles of good versus evil. Rather, wars are waged and grievances accumulated over selfishness. That is it. Nothing more. 

But these selfish people will rob from you your comfort hoping to increase theirs. They will steal from you the truth hoping to change the confines of their reality. They will deliver harm to you hoping to add to themselves, protection. They will replace your justice hoping to bring an excess of mercy for them. And no matter what evil they leave on your doorstep, they will always lack, always be victims of want and need. Always, there will be some sense that they wish things could have been different. How different things will need to have been for them to have chosen better will always be undefined and unattainable. Ultimately, the villains who has hurt me the most simply chose their own interests over me.

I am trying to craft a storybook villain with this in mind. I want to exaggerate his lack of other flaws rather than his multitude of them. Ironically, I am finding that he must be carefully written and rewritten so that any other flaw that may come from his selfishness, however naturally, grows late in the story. 

[Re-fried]

It takes me about a week to do anything of any real importance that does not fall under the category of damage control. With that said, it's Saturday. I am getting lots of things done. Letters. Phone calls. Baking banana bread. You know. The parts of life that somehow get shoved to the wayside even though they really are the marrow of living.

Today, I miss my sister. And, even though I have previously posted it, this poem is particularly fitting. Can I do that? Repost something...? I don't think there is an authority to appeal to on this one. After all, I did write it for her and all the times I tell her I am making something tasty and she should join me for dinner/dessert/whatever and move in with me...drop out of high school, move 600 miles, and what not. It's selfish. I am getting better, I think. Ok, so I just sent her a letter and told her to come to me. Someday. Someday I will grow up and into who I know I should be.

Unrelated: I think I need a whole cork board wall to pin prayers on. People and things to pray for keep coming to me in flocks or herds or torrents depending or your metaphor; but yeah, you get it. And I, I have lost all discipline for praying regularly especially on the intercessory level... for myself and for others. Maybe this is a good enough reason to buy a new journal ...since that's a bit more private than a wall. Maybe I will even buy a journal with lines in it. I haven't had one of those since I stopped writing my prayers in high school.