The Architects of Resentment

Last year I moved to where I am currently living in SF. While anticipating the move I devised a plan to pack gradually over a week or two leading up to the day we gained access to our new home. This packing phase went reasonably well.

The time that we got access to the new house was the week of the 2018 Camp Fire, the most destructive fire in CA history, and as a result the air quality in California was at its peak low for the year. The air was like the stereotype of horrible fog visibility except it was all smoke. Knowing the air quality wasn’t going to change any time soon, I pressed on with the move as planned. Note that I have asthma and, yes, I did wear a mask. The plan I cleverly devised was to take the day off of work and get the move done using Emily’s dad’s truck for big things and my car for everything else.

And to do most of this alone.

I can be stubborn sometimes.

Many runs were made between new house and old house. Boxes loaded into garages. Bed and dressers moved thanks to Ted helping me out. Ted and I fetched a surprisingly functional refrigerator at night from the second floor of a house off of 19th that clearly hasn’t had power for a long time (thanks for that one Craig’s List).

Somewhere in this, towards the late afternoon, Emily joined me and moved boxes, loaded up some stuff and did some initial unpacking. I was already pretty exhausted. In my exhaustion, and present for every beat of my suffering that day, I was making a martyr of myself. Another load of things from the car? Don’t say a word and go get it. That thing looks big. Don’t say a word and take care of it yourself. “We packed the car together, she should know there’s more things in here, where is she and why isn’t she helping?” I think while wordlessly going to get more stuff.

It’s easy to say these things like this now. Add in the touch of humor with the phrasing. Present it in hindsight where I now know I wasn’t doing any job at all of communicating. And, in those laps to the car while Emily was somewhere in the house doing who-knows-what I was suffering, wanting my suffering to be witnessed and wanting to be acknowledged in my suffering.

In short, I was building resentment, “a bitter indignation at having been treated unfairly.” Let’s make that, believing I was being treated unfairly.

From a distance, and intellectually, I know that the way out is to communicate clearly as soon as possible. Ask for help. Agree on expectations. Let needs and wants be known. All that truly wonderful stuff. I do a lot better with these things now, although it is still a work in progress.

This past weekend, Emily and I were at a retreat in the Santa Cruz mountains: a wonderful time. We temporarily left it to go to another event with another community back in SF. After that event, we slept at home with the intention of cleaning some of our camping equipment and driving back to the retreat. Personally, I had made some additional objectives; sleep until no later than 10, have sex, finish a load of laundry, clean off some tent spikes we had borrowed, lay out our tent and tarp to dry, repack for the last day of the retreat, leave home around 1pm.

Too, too, too much.

I was a double-rock-star because I also didn’t tell Emily all of my ambitions. I literally had the thought that morning, “I don’t have time to talk with her about what I want to get done, I’m better off crushing these as hard as I can (double entendre not intended) and getting us back on the road.” While the sex was engaging and fun, the rest of my running around and feeling the self-inflicted time pressure shifted the way we were relating to one another and didn’t leave me as a fun person to be around.

The drive back to the retreat was long and uncomfortable. We normally reconnect from tension with a shared thing to laugh at like stand up comedy or baby goats while reestablishing touch. Neither of these were really available in a moving car.

This brings me to the following hypothesis that I’ve been trying on, people who experience resentment are often the very architects of the conditions they are feeling. This normally occurs when the person feeling resentful hasn’t communicated their wants, needs or experiences clearly to the other people involved in whatever is occuring. This doesn’t apply when someone does express themselves clearly, they get agreement, and then the agreement is not met for some reason involving the other person’s negligence.

And! What should I have done in the above two stories? “Hey bae, I’m feeling anxious about this, that, and the other. Do you have time to talk about them?” It’s not perfect and it’s roughly 300 times better than what I did. I’m thinking that there are many solutions depending on when the architect of the resentment (that’s you and me, dear reader) gets their head above water and realizes what they are doing.

There is a weekend with a lot of activities coming up. There is a lot I want to do. There is a lot I am responsible for. There are more people involved in this than just me. I am going to talk to the people involved in my wants and hopes ahead of time to set expectations and have my reality checked in case I’m getting too ambitious.

I am noticing that I am attempting to send non-verbal cues and I’m frustrated that those cues don’t seem to be landing. I am going to go gain this person’s attention and clearly ask for what I was hoping they would pick up on. While this happens I will own my frustration and not allow it to corrupt my request into a demand.

I went beyond the brink. I’m upset. The people around me are upset. What stories am I telling myself about this situation? How are my stories different than the stories of the other people involved?

Our own story is never the only story. This is extra true in conflict. Not seeing or acknowledging others stories perpetuates harm, victimhood, and the conflict itself. The catch is that the harder it is to see outside of one's story, the more important it is to break out of that story. As with Jiu Jitsu, the best way to get out of a bad spot is to not allow yourself to get there to begin with (I promise this isn't a cop out). Communicate early, often, and clearly.

That, and, hold on loosely to your expectations. Sometimes we’re lucky enough to have things go as planned. Sometimes we get sick or injured. Sometimes there’s an accident on the freeway. Sometimes you’ve planned for too many things to go just right and you were doomed before you said “good morning, love.” Meanwhile, others have their own thoughts, feelings, hopes, expectations, and plans. Hopefully they can hold on loosely too and we can help remind each other to do so.