Day 270 Question 270:

Are you holding onto any resentment in your life?

So I am always talking about how holding onto negativity serves absolutely no purpose.  There is no purpose of regret because the past is behind us and will not be relived.  The same holds true for resentment.  When we are in a state of resentment we are holding a grudge against something that has already happened…something that is now completely out of our control.  So, do I hold any resentment.  As much as I hate to admit it, the answer is yes.  There are things from my past that I have yet to let go of….things that linger and still have this stupid hold on me.  I don’t like it but it is there and I accept it.

So, where does my resentment lie?  There are different areas that still have that lingering hold over me.  I think about my family on my dad’s side and I still hold some anger inside of me due to being unfairly judged.  I spoke my peace via email but never voiced how I really felt.  It still sits with me and I question whether or not I have blown it way out of proportion of whether I need to take a step to actually talk to them.  It has been almost seven years since I have been in their physical presence and at this moment I am allowing them to control some of my thoughts because of my internal questions and doubts of the situation.  It is only a small resentment that does not affect my daily life but it looms in the backdrop from time to time and deep down I know it is something I really should face in order to move past it.

It has been almost a year since I dated someone.  I dated someone from August-October.  It was brief but passionate and chaotic and every emotion mixed into one.  Whether I want to admit it or not there is still a great deal of resentment toward this person.  For months after our split I gave him the benefit of the doubt and wanted him to improve his life and I lived in a fantasy world thinking our paths will cross again when the time is right.  I finally slapped myself in the face and popped back into reality.  I chose this relationship and I realize I am the only one to blame but there still is resentment there.  I was the puppet and he was the puppeteer.  Here was a man that was freshly separated from his wife that had far too much baggage to mention and there was me….the girl so eager to please and to feel wanted.  I never truly felt wanted.  Our short-lived relationship was nothing but constant work and emotional breakdowns.
His words and his actions were never in sync which caused me to be in a constant state of confusion and self-questioning.  I have anger inside of me toward him and I never expressed that to him and I believe that is why there is a continual lingering resentment sitting inside of me.  I believe that is the reason I have shut myself off from the dating world and put up a big unbreakable wall.  I have not dealt with my anger and pain because they are emotions I am very uncomfortable with.  To me they are signs of weaknesses and I am unsure of a healthy way to deal with them.  I keep telling myself that I just need to get over it but that is so much easier said than done.  My resentment is really not toward him…it is more toward myself if anything.  I am almost 34 years old and any and all relationships I have been in have been failures that have proven that I give and give and give and the only thing I ever get in return is pain.  I have tried to make hopeless situations work out far too many times and I have wanted to believe that people are something they are not.  I hate talking about this stuff because I feel like I am having a big ole pity party for myself….I don’t know maybe I am.  I have changed my life so drastically because I have learned that this world is really survival of the fittest and I don’t want to continue to be one of the weak ones anymore.  I don’t want to rely on people anymore.

 I try so hard every day to make people happy and to be a good person but sometimes I wonder whether what I convey on the outside is at all the same as how I feel on the inside.  I sometimes wonder if people look at me as an easy target to walk all over.  I seriously even hate writing these words but I think it is vital to get my thoughts out on the table to finally face.  I may not be speaking them to anyone but I am at least getting out what I have been holding in….I am getting out the resentment and pain that has lingered.  If you have gotten this far in this drawn out entry I don’t want you to think I am unhappy.  This is not the story of Woe is Me!  We are all made up of these various parts of ourselves and this is only a piece of me.  This is the piece of me that is hardest to express because I don’t like being so honest about these feelings that I have.  I meet people throughout life and some inspire me and push me forward while others do the complete opposite.  I wanted so badly to believe in the last guy I was dating (and I am not saying he is a bad person) but his life and my life would never coincide and his actions broke me just a little bit more.  Again, I do not resent him….I resent the fact that I put so much effort into something that I pretty much knew would amount to nothing.  This is the aspect of my life I can’t quite figure out yet….I believe it is the aspect with the greatest challenge.  I love and hate these challenges (ha ha).

For now I will depart because when I start babbling like this I could go on forever and I will go on a long drawn out rant about my purpose in this life.  I would do that but I have homework shouting my name.