It’s not hard to hold a grudge. Not hard at all. Unless you start thinking about it. Apply a little common sense or the lens of age to your grudge and you may find you don’t have to carry those hard, heavy feelings around at all.
Dammit.
I was carrying such a grudge when I began thinking about this essay. My clever little title was the perfect reference for how I was feeling about having to go to an event with someone from my past. A person who caused me a lot of pain and torment; probably half the time not even realizing they were doing it, which is almost as bad.
I was going to write about how difficult it was going to even be in the same room with them, much less be polite. Or professional. I might have even written about “burying the hatchet” and succumbed to a joke in bad taste about where that hatchet might end up. Years have gone by since I have even thought of this person and I was going to be practically elbow to elbow with them at this event. For all the things I’ve forgotten in my life, innocuous slights or intentional insults, the mention of this person’s name brought back their transgressions as if it had been last month. I was going to write about the fact that years after this person did and said unkind and negative things about me, that I still did have those hard feelings.
I couldn’t wait to get my fingers on the keyboard. As I began to record the damage and pain which would lead to justifying my writing about them all these years later, I realized: I wasn’t really enjoying it. I realized that it was starting to feel uncomfortable and I didn’t want to keep writing. What would I get out of pointing fingers now? Just to perpetuate some hard feelings that arose over 25 years ago. Why would I want to feel that way right now? If I have a choice—and I believe I do—shouldn’t I choose to not have hard feelings in my life? Whenever I can?
And also, in case you missed it, it was twenty-five years ago! Revenge is a dish best served cold, but revenge after twenty-five years is a dish way past its expiration date. Was it revenge I was seeking? I didn’t spend too much time sorting out why I thought this would be a good topic, only that I was the girl to do it; I had the clever title. But once I started, whatever was prodding my desire to exact some sort of justice sputtered quickly in the light of so many years gone by. I apparently didn’t need whatever I thought I was going to get.
“No hard feelings” is what someone says when that’s exactly what kind of feelings you’re having and they just don’t want to feel guilty about possibly causing them. And even though Glennon Doyle insists that “we can do hard things,” hard feelings are, well—hard. Sometimes you just can’t deal with them. Or it’s too annoying. Or you don’t want to; it’s too sad or too painful.
So, for me, “no hard feelings” isn’t going to be some flippant way of dodging responsibility, but a way to clear my past and my heart from feelings that simply don’t need to be there anymore. And so, dear reader, I did go to that event. I sat next to the person and made clever chitchat. I smiled…I might have laughed. I met some new, nicer people.
It wasn’t hard at all.
A wonderful way through… thank you. And. Brava to you!
Love this—and need to learn THIS lesson over and over and over and…