my no good resentment

Ann and I were sitting at our small kitchen table in our small kitchen yesterday afternoon talking. The topic of ‘resentments’ came up.

I was reminded of something I heard early one afternoon in Provincetown, Massachusetts in 2008 — “Having a resentment is like setting yourself on fire and hoping the smoke bothers someone else.”

When I first rolled down into California in July of 2021 I would find myself hanging around with some strangers in a room in Encinitas. On one of the walls was a paper someone had hand-written in large letters, which said this — “It’s not them.” Seeing that sign made me happy. And grateful.

I spent a fair amount of my life sure it was them. Over time I came to realize probably it wasn’t them, something that paper on the wall helped clarify. See — If it’s not them, then whatever I’m feeling and however I am is simply just me. Which was and is good news. I could never do anything about them anyway. Duh. But I can, and do, get to do something about me. Like sit in front a mirror and ask, “What’s my part?”

And in that ‘own my own’ process, not setting myself on fire for all the wrong reasons.