This b*tch

Dear Complaint Department,

My father has been dating the most passive aggressive, angry, unkind, horrid woman for the last 8 years and I hate it. She makes every family function tense and strained.

Dear Tense and Strained,

Oof. You are so brave to just say it and to say it clearly and pointedly. The Complaint Department doesn’t dispense advice, but, RUN. Run for your life. Run toward love and safety and kindness like your life depends on it, because it does. Have you tried burning it all down? Have you tried screaming your lungs out until all the windows shatter?

There is no answer here of course. Which is why a steady complaint into the wild, into the wind, into the forest, into a strange website is about all you can do. We hear you. We hear your compliant, you anguish, your rage. We will scream out the windows here for you.

Everyone we hate, even if we are justified in hating them, are mirrors to show us what is unloved within our own selves—this we know but too they also show us what we are grateful for in ourselves and others. How wonderful that you are not also a horrible human being. How wonderful that so many people you know are not passive aggressive and angry and unkind and horrid. Can you imagine if everyone was? Can you even imagine?

To borrow a clique, kindness makes the world go around, and yet, what of those who do not participate in this kindness? What of those who just take from it and drain the life force from everything beautiful growing? You can’t love people into the light unfortunately.

So you do what you do, you complain and you love those who are good, and you keep adding to the kindness that propels every planet’s turning and if you can find a safe way to do it, burn it all down.

Thank you for being you.

—with care for what is awful, with love and appreciation for who you are,

The Complaint Department