hate

I’ve been thinking a lot about hate today. Not towards anyone in particular, but just the concept of “hate” itself. Not on a universal level but on a personal one. I just don’t hear that word too much on a daily basis. Oh, I heard it plenty on the radio during the election as in , “They” hate Bush. Well, that was kind of a generic “they.” But otherwise I just don’t hear people saying, “I hate you.” Even my kids don’t say that to each other. If they get mad they just fight and get over with – then they’re playing together soon afterward. I don’t usually find “hate” in the things I read, (unless it’s something like “I hate my thighs!”), or in my mail or e-mail, or on the blogs I usually frequent. So when I do run across a personal statement of hate, it’s rather a shock to the system.



I don’t “Hate” anyone now. I remember thinking I hated certain classmates when I was in school. On retrospect I wonder if that was really hate or just fear. Fear of them not liking me, fear of them making me feel self conscious and stupid. Because the truth was if they had shown any small glimpse of kindness I would have welcomed it. I don’t think then that I really hated them. Why would you welcome kindness from someone you truly hated?



Back in the 80s I thought I hated a co-worker. She was the typical office trouble maker. But in someways I felt sorry for her situation, and some of her personal problems. So maybe I didn’t really hate her as much as I hated the problems she caused in the ofice for everyone else.



I could have hated my cousin. She committed fraud against my senile father and my mother when she was sick. It took lots of time and money to undo that mess. And while I would never trust her as far as I could pick her up at throw her, I can’t say that my heart races at the sound of her name, or that I have lost any sleep plotting ways to get even. I just haven’t. My feelings for her haven’t consumed me in the least.



I think although I may have been really really angry at these various people, I don’t have it in me to hate them. What I mean is that it seems to really take an incredible mount of energy to have a hatred towards another grow in your heart. And it’s the type of energy that you have to keep feeding or it just dies out. Maybe I could sustain that type of emotion for a good cause, but right now I just don’t seem have the resources to develop a real hatred towards anyone!



or maybe it’s the progesterone supplements…