Letting go of grudges

It occurred to me I spend a lot of time cleaning up after our cat, Riley, and he doesn’t even like me.

My husband said I was being too harsh. Of course, Riley likes me. Maybe. But he definitely likes Dale better. Riley jumps up on the table in the morning to say hi to Dale, but unless I have butter nearby, I don’t even get a passing meow.

Dale feeds him, and I suppose that explains why Riley is a daddy’s cat. But I deliver fresh tuna juice to him wherever he may happen to be resting. That ought to count for something. Riley is a long-haired cat, so I groom him at least every other day. I pre-heat his spa table (the clothes dryer). I try to be a good mother.

Sometimes he likes it, especially those long, slow strokes on the chin, but sometimes he doesn’t. My goal is to keep him mat-free. If I should find what we call a protomat and loosen it with my army of cat grooming tools, he’s still gentle and tolerant but not very happy. I wonder if he holds a grudge.

Speaking of grudges, I found this article about letting go of your grudges fascinating. I assumed I don’t hold grudges, but as I started to think about it, more than one came to the surface. I was appalled to find myself in the category of nurturing a grudge … holding onto it like a pet.

The good news is you can train yourself to forgive and move on by reframing the result. And lucky for us, retirement is a good time to de-grudge, because you don’t really want to spend the rest of your quality time stewing over stuff that went down a long time ago, do you?

My grudge involved a mentor who steered my career in an unwelcome direction. As a result, I had one dreadful year, the worst experience of my life including cancer, but when all was said and done, I ended up in California, where I wanted to be all along. And I got to retire! Maybe it’s time to let go.

The article links to a quiz that ranks your grudge on a scale of one to 10. I took it twice for the same grudge, as described above, and it was a four the first time I took it and a three the second time. Maybe even taking the quiz helped me see it wasn’t as awful as I thought. I’ve reframed the experience as a success story, a survival story, and I am now working on personal forgiveness for the grudgee.

I have to say the political atmosphere in the U.S. and around the world makes me sad and angry. I partially blame social media, so that would be another grudge. But I do think the current situation is bigger and deeper than social media, which just escalates the underlying causes.

There’s a meanness I don’t recall seeing in my lifetime. Hostility expressed at the speed of light about every little thing – way beyond holding grudges. My heart breaks every time I hear anti-Semitic, racist, homophobic bullshit. And I’ll just say this. It’s a good time to be post-uterus.

I’ve had this John Prine song on my brain. The Lonesome Friends of Science:

The lonesome friends of science say

“The world will end most any day”

Well, if it does, then that’s okay

‘Cause I don’t live here anyway

I live down deep inside my head

Well, long ago I made my bed

I get my mail in Tennessee

My wife, my dog, my kids, and me

John Prine

On the bright side, I went for a walk and June is bustin out all over. All this darkness, yet there they are, luscious flowers, springing with life. The Maui hiker survived! Navy pilots are reporting unexplained flying objects. Let’s hope they are aliens and way nicer than us.