A couple of people have asked me to post this up, so here it is.
For Flash Prose Writing, which is my elective for the 2nd semester, we were given the assignment to write about 'Hate'. I wrote a non-fiction piece about my experience with hating whilst I was growing up. Reading it out in front of a room of over 30 people was both terrifying and comforting, especially because one of the people I talked about was someone nearly everyone in the room knew. Either way, enjoy, and remember that this piece is as raw as it gets.
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Love/Hate
I hated my first person when I was only seven. Her name was Carrie, and she was the first friend I made when I started school. We both shared a penchant for furry stickers and gymnastics, and within a month, we were declaring our “best-friends-forever” status. But then one day, I hated her. She was pretty and popular and everything I wanted to be, but never could. At the time, I couldn’t identify envy. I just knew that I didn’t want to be her friend, and when someone asked why, I would declare, “Why do I need a reason? I just hate her!”
‘Hate’ was a word we all threw around, participating in this childish idea that we needed ‘enemies’ and ‘haters’ to really be up there. If everyone liked you, something was clearly wrong. You had to step on a few toes to be successful. So I hated Carrie, and in return, she hated me too. Win-win.
But, growing up, hating started to take on a whole new meaning. I must have been thirteen when I got into a huge fight with a dear friend, Diana, and in my famously irrational temperament, had gone around telling anyone who would listen how much I hated her.
Then, someone stopped me, and said, “You know, if you hate her, you probably love her. You don’t really hate someone you don’t care about.”
That must have been one of the stupidest things I had ever heard and I dismissed it. Yet, six years later, I found myself sitting in my bedroom, crying my heart out, and remembering those exact words. I was crying because I had decided, once again, that I was going to hate someone, but this time, the decision hadn’t been easy. It wasn’t whimsical, and it was killing every fibre of my being to have come to that decision.
I had loved Jason. Or rather, I still did. We had the sort of friendship that I had always wanted, the kind that had virtually no boundaries. I could knock on his door at one in the morning and he would come out, bleary-eyed and flustered, and let me cry about anything. I could hug him for ages, the feeling of safety in his arms the one I never wanted to lose. We had comfortable silences and uncomfortable conversations. In time, I grew to trust and love him. But then, gradually, things changed. There were no longer late night conversations about life. Doors were closed in my face. Hugs were short and awkward. Silences were uncomfortable. Everything I used to love about him started to irritate me. His strong work ethic which I had so admired was now just the reason why he never had time to watch Homeland with me. The many photos he would take of himself on my camera, which used to be so endearing, was now just a stark reminder of easier, happier times. He always said he cared, but that rung hollow in my ears. Actions speak louder than words.
I didn’t know what caused the change. All I knew was that I was left with a dull ache in my heart. So, when I realised that loving him wasn’t going to be enough, I decided to hate him.
But how do you hate someone you’ve loved more than anyone in the world? How do you wake up one day and start hating everything that used to warm your heart? How do you walk past this person in the hallway and avert your gaze so you don’t even see him in the corner of your eyes? How do you pretend he is dead, when the memories are still so alive?
Honestly, you can’t and I learned this the hard way. It used to be so easy to ‘hate’ someone. I ‘hated’ Carrie because I was jealous of her, and despite how, in retrospect, that was an ill-founded reason to hate someone, our mutual distaste of each other stretched on. When we finally talked to each other again, five years later, we both reflected upon how stupid and childish we had been. The worst part was realizing that we had lost all that time – all the time that we could have spent on trading furry stickers or doing cartwheels. It seemed so dumb, and to this day, we remain friends. But here’s the thing about all those people I thought I hated – I didn’t care about them enough to actually hate them. I didn’t even dislike them, because that warranted a certain liking. The opposite of love isn’t hate. It’s indifference. And hate, well, it’s love masked with anger and disappointment. When that all falls away, you still love the person you thought you hated. You still want him to be happy. You see him laugh and you smile a little inside, but then you’re hit by this sadness that you’re no longer part of that laughter.
They always say it’s bad to hate. Yet, you can’t hate someone you don’t love. So I wonder if, perhaps, I shouldn’t love at all.
