I am the type to make New Year’s Resolutions. I once heard that it is a good idea to make a resolution during the Jewish New Year in September, and then use the secular New Year in January as a check in point to monitor your progress. But this becomes a study in depression as I am also not the type to keep a New Year’s resolution. I have never lost 10 pounds without having a newborn to show for it, I have never grown 5 inches, and I have never developed more patience for whining children despite my repeated attempts at exposure therapy.
But this year I made a pledge during the Days of Awe. I resolved to be less passive aggressive. And my New Year’s Day check in revealed no progress whatsoever. For those of you who think I am being hard on myself, my assessment was completely corroborated by my husband (I subsequently got really mad, but didn’t tell him why).
I am non-confrontational by nature. It is difficult for me to come straight out and tell people that they upset me. My self-prescribed treatment is to try and ignore it until I get over it, and when the ‘try to ignore it until I get over it’ part of that plan fails, I prefer to think about it obsessively, get really mad, and offer myself no outlet to talk about it. (If you want to discuss unhealthy behavior, I would rather you critique my mini-Twix habit.)
Passive aggression is counterproductive with children simply because they don’t get it. When my kids ask me if I’m mad about something and I give them a glaring, barking ‘NO!’ they take it at face value and continue to NOT clear the table. Kids don’t understand body language. Luckily I do, so when I see said children crossing their legs and dancing around, I don’t believe them when they swear they don’t have to go to the bathroom.
Being passive aggressive towards my husband yields a better result. He is more intuitive than my oblivious children. Our finely tuned dance of ‘is something wrong?’ ‘NO!’ usually tips him off that all is not peachy keen. But it does not indicate to him what is wrong, and giving him any clue as to what is amiss would thoroughly ruin my fun.
See, I do not act this way because it is healthy; I am passive-aggressive because I just love my anger. I love resentment that is baffling to anyone other than me, because if I let it stew and boil for just a while, it turns into something beautiful – righteous indignation. That’s right, righteous indignation that is so disproportionate to whatever happened in the first place that I have to forget the original cause lest I realize how ridiculous I actually am.
This fury is like solar energy, a renewable source that powers my body to clean my home, work, run errands, and make lunches and dinner with extreme speed and efficiency. Although the aggression itself is passive, the result is extremely active. I often look at confrontational people and wonder how they ever manage to get anything done. Meanwhile I am in negotiations with Toyota to sell them all my future anger to power the first car that runs solely on wrath.
The postscript is that once the anger has productively burned itself out, I sheepishly divulge what was bothering me. And then I quickly change the subject with a ‘wow the house looks great and is that dinner that smells so good??’
So trying to be less passive aggressive would be wrong on a number of levels, it would deny me my fun and my cleaning spurts, and that is just no way to start a new year. I am therefore changing my resolution a third of the way through the Jewish calendar. From now until September all my efforts will be focused on reaching 5’7. If you think I can’t do it please let me know, my house needs a good scrubbing.
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