Karma Is Never Late
...but she refuses to rush.
I was raised on the belief that taking an eye would cost you an eye.
A tooth for a tooth. Whatever I didn’t want done back to me, I probably shouldn’t do.
I figured revenge was written into the fabric of things—stitched right into the universe like a law, like gravity. You didn’t mess with it unless you wanted consequences. So I kept score. Quietly. Religiously.
If you hurt me, I’d hurt you back.
If you humiliate me, I’d find a way to humiliate you.
If you take something from me, I would find something to take from you.
In my twenties, I was deeply invested in vindication. I wanted justice to look obvious. Public. Clean. I kept the receipts. I wanted the apologies. I craved the moment where everyone agreed on the story: yes, she was wronged.
It was a narrative I needed. I’m not embarrassed to admit it now. It’s part of evolution.
Then my thirties arrived, and life—who I now understand as a woman with a wildly dark sense of humor—started showing off her creativity.
Whatever revenge fantasy I had dreamed up, she could do better.
Somewhere along the way, I backed off and let her do the work of balancing the scales. It’s heavy work. It’s intense work. And I no longer had the energy or the desire to do it.
And here’s the thing no one tells you about karma: when she finally shows up, it almost never looks the way you envisioned it. It looks so much better. She’s not so obvious, so on the nose. She has a little more discretion than we would.
I watched karma visit every single person who had caused me or my son suffering and the payback was never cinematic. No dramatic collapse. No groveling monologue in the rain.
Sometimes karma looks, on the surface, like something good is happening.
They get the dream house.
But then it floods. Or maybe there’s an infestation.
They take a luxury vacation.
And come home with a broken bone.
They get the job they’re after.
And suddenly can’t sleep. Or can’t stop drinking.
They get everything they said they wanted—money, admiration, a bigger stage—only to discover they are the same person standing in an empty room.
You see where I’m going with this. Sometimes what you think is someone’s good luck is just the setup for a fall from very high up. Karma loves altitude.
Karma doesn’t announce herself. She doesn’t ask for witnesses. She doesn’t provide a timeline. But I promise you, she is never late. Never.