My Betta is a Pacifist

I learned some time ago that pet stores place the bettas close to each other so they flare up in self defense. It shows them off better, I guess. It’s ingenious really, turning instinct to profit. I don’t remember when I learned it, but I remember my brothers decided to test it out, and we’d hold a mirror up to the fish tank in the living room. Year after year, the swimming gems would puff up at their own reflection.

I bought my own betta, finally. It was a step I decided to take towards adulthood (RAWR, independent college spirit!) It took me some time, but I finally decided he would be named Cooper; it seemed like a good, shy name for a good, shy fish. That should have been my first clue, that Cooper was the name that fit him.

I passed Coopers tank the other day, and on a whim brought back a mirror. I’m a nostalgic person, I’ll admit, and there was something comforting in reliving the memories from my childhood. I wanted to see my fish get angry and aggravated, to see his blues turn to greens as he shimmered and quivered in place as he stared down the fish in the mirror. It was going to be one of those moments of the day that just made me happy.
Until he swam away.

In the moments of instinct between grabbing the mirror and holding it up to the glass, I built up an exorbitant amount of expectation. I didn’t realize this, of course, until Cooper let me down. Leave it to me to pick the one Japanese fighting fish without killer instinct. I had to face the fact, mine would be the one to get eaten in the real world. I chose the loser.  

I had no way of knowing this in the store of course. Well, I could have if I had put every fish in a Battle Royale, but then I might have wound up with the pasty white fish with the ugly, small fins. Tomboy instincts aside, I am a girl, and in all matters piscatorial beauty trumps brawn. Except sharks. But that’s a different story.

I guess what really struck me is that I was disappointed. Really, it’s not that big of a deal. I like Cooper, he’s pretty and he makes me smile when he swims around his little tank and chews his pellets before he swallows. So why was I disappointed?

Honestly, I’d run away from conflict, too. I do, in fact. In some ways it’s defined my life, that I avoid conflict. I may be reading myself too much into Cooper’s reaction to the mirror, but that doesn’t change the thought process. In a fight or flight scenario, I’d be a flight-er. It doesn’t even have to be an adrenaline infused situation; I run from tense situations and uncomfortable conversations. But I’m not like Cooper, I’m not a part of a species where the one who flinches first fails. Right?

Maybe that’s why I was disappointed. I think life is a lot like that. It kinda is all about staring down what scares you, like the future, and decisions, and hard work and cranky roommates and breaking up and apologizing and forgiving. I’m not disappointed in Cooper. I’m disappointed that I know I run away.

I want to be a trauma doctor. I want to be the one to react when shit hits the fan. I want to be the one to fight the inevitable. I want to be the fighter. But I’m a runner. And not even in the healthy, marathon kind of way. I mean in the ‘locks herself in her room with a computer when her roommates are home’ kind of way, which is closely related to ‘I missed PT 3 weeks in a row so I’m gonna let that number keep getting bigger because I’m embarrassed to show my face there now’ kind of way. Running and hiding, when did that become my identity? When did I let that start defining my life? When did I start letting other people see my instincts? (Probably about the same time I decided it would be a good idea to post inner-monologues on a blog.) But those questions don’t matter. What matters is how can I fix that? How can I fight that instinct?

Maybe that’s how, just fighting the instinct will make me a fighter all around. Nothing is going to change until I decide to change myself. My roommate will still move out unless I can convince her to stay, and I can't do that from my room, or my computer. My hips will still hurt unless I suck it up and go back in for therapy. It's a scary thought, but it's a scary world. Maybe I am more like a betta than I thought. I have to fight for my life every day, but I'll be fighting myself. And so long as I'm associating my subconscious with my fish's instincts (alas, it has come to this...) I hope one day I can look in the mirror and not want to look away from what's in front of me. My tank's too small to be unhappy with myself.