Hate To Love

Redemption begins today.

At least that is what I want to think. I am still experiencing remnants of angst, but overall, I am quite relieved. A weight has been lifted off, and yes, I am exhaling loudly. Though my chest feels lighter, my brain is fried. Eyes were moist yet now they are dried. Even so, I want to write.

I want to share my experience of loving the Other. Yeah, I’m serious. That was what I had been reading about last night ‘til morning. We all know reading is helpful, truly helpful, but it is not enough. Sometimes, verbalizing what you read is inadequate. Actions do speak louder than words, after all.

I am not going to tell you what love is, no, I am so tired of definitions. Let me do phenomenology. I want to describe to you my experience, so that you just might catch a glimpse of love. Here I go: Today, I threw my usual indifference out of the window and lashed out at someone I hate to love.

Before you judge me, never mind, judge me all you want, you do not know who I am anyway. Even if you find out, oh well, it is all right, I guess.

This person is someone I see every single day, I wonder why, oh wait, is it because we live together? How could I forget!I do not know where to begin. Shall I start with the fact that he is so annoying?Ha, I sound like a stupid brat for saying that. Maybe I am.

It is not a he, is it? It is actually a she, isn’t it? Just stick with the idea that I am talking about a real human being, he or she, it does not matter. Forget about the gender.

He tells me when and what and HOW to eat. If you come over to my place, you would probably gush about how affectionate he is, and I would probably give you an abnormally large grin (not nose) and say,“I knowright?”

Eat with him every day and have him tell you that you need to heat the food, that he will eat less so that you will eat more, that if you are not hungry then he is not hungry, that you need to heat the food, really, do you know how to use the microwave? And by the way, this is chicken, that is fish, and here, have some veggies.

I want to tell him, please, let me decide on my own, I know what I want to eat, and do not worry, I know what a chicken looks like. Introducing the dishes is not necessary, because you did not cook them anyway. I thank you for your concern, but please eat even when I am not hungry.

I did tell him once, twice, or maybe thrice? Nah, I lost count. He does not understand. Never mind. This is nothing compared to the many times he ridiculed someone else in the house.And that someone else, though deaf, happens to be very dear to me, and having him point fingers and say vile things almost all the time is something very hard to tolerate.

He complains everyday. I no longer know when he is speaking the truth and when he is not, because of the lies he told me to make people look bad. I caught him in his lies!My anger was growing like a forest fire to the point that whenever I see him, I just run away to my room.

It became a habit, I do not know since when. Months ago?I gave up. My patience ran out, dry, rusty. I did not want to talk to him, listen to him, look at him, no.Why… no one in the house does anyway.However, he noticed, of course he noticed, and from time to time, I heard him ask, “Why don’t you talk to me anymore?”

It is so difficult. Love hurts. Indifference hurts, as well.

Today, he delivered a new complaint. People did not do what he wanted them to do. My mask cracked. I did not want to swear, but my head was so fuming hot when I asked, no, shouted, “Why can’t you, just for once, sing praise and say thank you? All you tell me are mistakes and faults. Can no good thing come out of your mouth?”

He got hurt and pointed fingers everywhere and decided to clam up. From an outsider’s point of view, you will accuse me of violence and feel compassion for the victim who accused me of siding with everyone else, everyone but not him.

And then I began to cool. He was right, you know.To accuse me. It has become my instinct to think that he is the culprit. I am no longer rational when I am around him. I lose my reason, my head to the anger that consumes me. Above all, I render myself…incapable of love.

Indifference is a poison. It is no better than hatred; it is worse.

My indifference caused me to desensitize, to crush my human emotions, and consequently, to lose grasp of my humanity. Let me insert some physics to lighten up the mood. You know about the law of action-reaction, right? When you sit on a hard chair for a long time, you or a specific part of you begin to feel sore, because the chair is pushing you back with the same amount of weight you are imposing on it.

And so when I, a human being, knowingly intentionally consciously hurt another human being, we share the pain, even when I say I do not care I do not care I do not care. That is how intimate the human relation is.The self-defense mechanism is not strong enough. It will not hold. It will break down.

In the end, the best would always becaring for the other person, even when that person hurts you.

Yet love is unexplainably and infinitely better than indifference. I cannot explain why, but is most certainly the reason why I am on the way to recovery. I am feeling like a human again.Throwing caution to the wind, I decided to open my mind and heart. I swallowed it all and said to him, “Let us reconcile. Please talk. And I will listen. Not a word from me.”

Time flew.An hour or two. He explained his side of things. I nodded and tried to maintain eye-contact which was so hard by the way. Little by little, I tried to join the conversation and invite him to look at the other side of things. It did not work, so I just, you know, I just listened to his misconceptions and lies about people (whose names he does not even know). And it was, well, bearable. Not so bad.

I survived. I listened just as I promised to listen, with an open and oddly fearless heart, and I tell you that it made all the difference in the world, because I was able to let go a part if not all of that is bitter and decaying within me.

I am ready. To take off my mask. I am ready. To break the silence.I am ready. To talk to him again. I am ready. To care.

As stupid as it might sound to you, (and to me):

Love has begun to set me free.