Gene's Blog

If Life Were Not So Bitter

I’ve barely written at all this month, I know. And it isn’t because I’ve been reading, I’ve not been doing that either. It is that life itself has intervened. Many things, many of those momentous, have gone on this month, I’ll not be airing dirty laundry, or laundry of any kind, here, but I do want to let you all know I am still here. And I don’t like this story. I’ll tell you why at its end.

IF LIFE WERE NOT SO BITTER…

File this story under the heading: “If life were not so bitter, revenge would not be sweet.”

After seventeen years of marriage, a man dumped his wife for a younger woman. The downtown luxury apartment was in his name and he wanted to remain there with his new love, so he asked his wife to move out and said he would buy her another place. The wife agreed to this, but asked that she be given three days.

The first day she packed her personal belongings into boxes and crates and suitcases. On the second day, she had the movers come and collect her things. On the third day, she sat down for the last time at their candlelit dining table, soft music playing in the background, and feasted alone on shrimp and a bottle of Chardonnay.

When she had finished, she went into each room and deposited shrimp leftovers into the hollow of her curtain rods. She then cleaned up the kitchen and left.

Her husband returned with his new girl, and all was bliss for the first few days. Then it started; slowly but surely. Clueless, the man could not explain why the place smelled as it did.

They tried everything. First they cleaned and mopped and aired the place out. That didn’t work. Then they checked vents for dead rodents. Still no luck. They steam cleaned the carpets and hung air fresheners. That didn’t solve the problem. They hired exterminators; still no good. They ripped out the carpets and replaced them. But the smell lingered.

Finally, they could take it no more and decided to move. The moving company packed everything and moved it all to their new place. Everything. Even the curtain rods.

I like the story because of the humor. But revenge is always a poor option if we want to be healthy and happy.

The problem is… we can’t carry a grudge and carry love in our hearts at the same time. We have to give one of them up. It’s a choice we make.

Some resentments are large; they’ve built up over a long time and will not be easy to part with. Some have been fed by years of pain and anger. But all the more reason to give them up.

When we’re tired of the anger and resentment and bitterness, we can choose a better way. We can be forever unhappy, or we can be healthy. We’re just not made to carry a big grudge and a heart filled with
love at the same time.

But I still chuckle at the story.

— Steve Goodier

Now then, the reason I don’t like this story is not its ultimate point, but its mean-spiritedness. Was the scorned wife right to be upset at how she had been treated? Of course. But did what she did make her the victor somehow? Did what she did make the world itself a better place by adding to it a bit of light? Or did we all become just a little darker at our core? I don’t chuckle at the story. I regret it. I regret that for far too many of us, getting even is more important than being right, regardless at whose expense that sense of victory comes. We should all be better than that. Perhaps one day we will be.

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene