funk in deep freeze

Radvent: the bright side of holding grudges

04 Dec 2010 Leave a Comment

by meganfinley in angry megan, radvent

It’s hard to come out of a place of resentment, and it takes practice (just like everything). Practice forgiving about small, everyday things. You can always non-forgive later. Who and what are you ready to let go of resentment toward?

The thing that I like about Radvent, thus far, is how we kind of feed off of each other — clearly we’re all feeding off of Lasertron, (she is, after all, leading this crazy journey) but sometimes, when Ariel writes her post first, I get to read that and then both Lasertron and Ariel’s posts can inspire me and lead me to think about different things than I might have originally wrote.

Today in Ariel’s post she wrote, “My favorite sentiment on this issue boils down basically to this: when you hold grudges, you’re letting some asshole live rent-free in your brain. Forgiveness = eviction.”

I like that. It makes sense. But the thing is with me… It works in the opposite manor. I hold on to grudges just long enough to figure out if I want to have this person in my life and then when I make the decision that I still wanna keep them around, I drop it! I totally let it go. I think that’s one of my guy-like qualities — one day I’m pissed and the next I’m like, “Whatever, let’s get a beer.”

Of course the grudges I do keep? Oh ho! They stick around forever… thereby allowing me to keep the ones who’ve done me wrong completely out of my life. I’m a very weak person in a lot of ways, especially when it means, confrontation and/or saying “no” to people. I often let people who treated me like shit remain in my life because I was afraid of hurting their feelings. So keeping the grudge coals hot inside of me allows me to tell them to “fuck off and keep fucking off.”

That’s the long way of explaining that basically… I don’t believe holding grudges is a bad thing — it’s the only way I can really keep up boundaries and defenses. I am not ready to let any of these people back into my life…

• the school bullies who made my life a living hell from 3rd to 12th grade
• insensitive and untrustworthy family members
• overly dramatic friends
• neighbors who express their desire for me to get raped
• the gutless assholes who robbed me at gunpoint
• managers who’ve thrown me under a buss to protect their own asses
• any one who’s ever hurt Aaron

So who am I ready to forgive? Who is welcome back into my good graces? I’ve thought about this all day long and (unfortunately?) (fortunately?) there’s no one I’m willing to let down my guard with under the guise of “forgiveness.” Because, when I thought about it, I need to keep the grudges that remain to keep myself protected still.

And when you really get down to the heart of the topic… I think that I’d be better asking for forgiveness more often. Now that’s a bigger problem for me.