Hatred: Can't we all just get along?

I've been away because the last 18 months have been horrible. People say to write when you're stressed, it's supposed to help. But for me, in those times writing is very difficult. I just didn't have it, but I'll tell you what I did have....Hate.

I've never actually hated anyone before. Not my friends in junior high when everyone formed a club and I wasn't invited. Not my parents, even though I thought "I hate you!" Not even the two men who, at different periods of my life, assaulted me. In those times I was sad, scared, lonely, angry, furious, betrayed. I had many feelings but never that white hot searing hatred that makes you see red and raises your blood pressure to stratospheric heights.

I liked hating. It gave me energy and focus. It made me feel, not like a bug caught in a web, but like the spider, sitting, watching, waiting for just the right moment. My hatred fantasies made me smile. Blood, knives, shaming, standing up for myself powerful and strong. Taking action. Doing something to change the situation. For the first time in my life I understood the desire for revenge and the need to hurt those who have hurt you. The carnage in the Middle East and Africa, the death penalty, gang "payback" all made sense.

But after a while, a funny thing happened. I started to realize that hatred doesn't only empower, it exhausts. It detracts. It lowers the hater to the lowest level possible. It didn't accomplish anything and it made me feel terrible. It's like bad sex, all build-up but nothing in the end. I still understand it. I can't say I'm free of it. There are times when I find myself going back there, wrapping myself in its protection, feeling it, wanting it. Yet nothing is better when I've hated and in the end, I suspect it's a sham. It's the devil whispering lies. A sweet addiction that leads no where. I hope I can remember that the next time it raises its dirty head. I wish the rest of the world knew it as well.