By Puja

When my best friend did stand-up, she had this great joke about how she holds grudges like nobody’s business (and subsequently pulled out a pocket full of index cards with grudges on them). I related, as I am sure all of you do to that concept of holding on to something that may be petty, but it just got in your craw and it will not get out.

I readily to confess that I do this.Except instead of grudges, I have feuds. They range from completely pointless (I will never buy a Lexus because someone I deeply dislike drives one) to outlandish (shakes fist at Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi). It is the ones that fall in-between that I want to talk about. How healthy is it to be in a one-sided feud with someone/something? Not very. When was it ever healthy to hold on to bad feelings? Granted a lot of these feuds originated in my twenties and are just an extension of my dislike for someone/thing. A tangible way to express my disdain: the one-sided secret feud. And the consequences of being in an unwitting feud with me are limited to endless eye-rolls in your general direction and a boycott of you and/or your establishment. You hear that chick-fil-a and hobby lobby?

As I get older, not wiser; just older, keeping up with these feuds becomes more tiring. And ultimately, I am the one losing out. Also there is that whole capital “L” Legacy thing I am working on. In an effort to simplify my life, make it more positive, and live with less baggage, I am going to give up perhaps my longest-running most pointless feud. The one with my local public library.

I can hear you asking what the hell is wrong with me. And I ask the same thing too. Here is how it started, when my baby sister was still in elementary school (and not to out her, but that was 15 years ago) the librarian informed us that her library card was expired and needed to be renewed. Fantastic great, lets do that. I filled out the form, only to be told that because I was not her parent – or the original person who signed her up – I could not renew her library card on her behalf, even though I was clearly not a minor. I was so angry. You are going to deny a child the right to read because you want our parents to come down to the library to sign this form just to be on the hook for the $0.30  a day late fee? I chastised the librarian (to be quite frank, I probably just threw mad attitude), wrote a strongly worded complaint to the library, and never went back. Suck it free lending institution that fosters literacy and learning in local communities.

Yeah, my bad on that one.

Is this a sign of maturity? This is a sign of maturity right? Is laziness maturity? We will go with maturity. I’m growing dammit. I will go get my library card renewed this weekend, and maturely enter the world of adulthood, with one less feud to my name.

Things Keeping Me Sane This Week: As recommended by my grudge carrying, joke telling BFF, the Headspace App. I have been using it for a little over three weeks now. What was supposed to be a three hour flight home on Sunday turned into an 18 hour nightmare with 3 missed or cancelled flights, weird unending nausea, a lost phone charger, and a vampire. And not once did I lose my shit with anyone. An odd ‘this is what it is’ mindset never left me. I don’t know if it was the app per se, but I remember the one time I almost lost it, I suddenly calmed down. The airline did their best to get me home, my boss was very understanding, and I bought a new phone charger all of which were not as unpleasant as they would have been if I was festering in negative emotions. So yay Headspace, and as always, shout out to your wellness and self-care routines. Share em in the comments if you got em.