My Hate Button is Broken

No secret I’ve hated people in the past. Been judgemental. Been mean. Wanted to hurt people. Sent angry emails. Lashed out. Even now I lash out at the safest of people. My husband, because I think he can handle it. My mom, because she won’t ever leave me. But over the last few years I just stopped hating people.

I blame it on the internet and it’s propensity to make poignent little quote pictures. I love me a good quote and when one strikes a chord with me, it never leaves… sometimes I even convince myself that I came up with it myself. I tend to remember that it wasn’t my invention right before I am about to spout it off in a blog post and think “oh yeah, I not so smart… someone else so smart”.

But there have been people in my life that I’ve been very, very angry with in the past. It was only when I started to deal with my own issues that I first forgave myself and then forgave them.

But still they are there in my life and for a while I can convince myself that all is well between us. That the past is just the past, that we are all good now and there may actually be buddings of friendship.

And then I will trip across a stray Facebook post that has secretly featured me … secret to most. Obvious to me. And it’s at this point that I really wish I could get mad.

Because Anger is a familiar warm blanket.

It’s that safe binky that covers me and protects me from people who want to hurt me. Who have the ability to wound and recklessly do so. Who have the exact knowledge of my achilles heel and strike in anger at will.

Anger is the shield. It’s the “it bounces off me and sticks to you” that leaves me unscathed in any fight.

And yet the shield is no more than paper now.

Why?

Because at some point you realize that anger helps no one. I believe in righteous anger still and still feel that at times when I think about things like child abuse or the human rights issues I read about. The horrors some people face in daily life. That anger is righteous and spurs many to action.

But the every day anger? The road rage, the family feuds, the irritation, the snide remarks from people you care about, the pointed ones from those you think you don’t care about…

That anger is gone.

And there are days I just want it back.

Because the sadness that has come to replace it can feel like I’m being ripped apart. Like my own heart is flinging itself from my chest.

I feel it when I’ve just settled into a safe place and someone lashes out. When I come across a snide remark that may or may not have been directed at me. When I just barely feel the angry wind of family feuds at my door. When a nearly complete stranger says something offensive.

I just get so sad.

My expectation that we all treat each other the way we want to be treated is shattered. My belief that if we all just knew the battles the other were facing that we’d weep with compassion is discarded.

I’m left with the feeling that there is nothing I can do. No shield to hold up. No sword to wound back or defend myself.

No warm angry blanket.

No safe angry footholds from which to lob my own attack. Push the hate button. Lob the grenade.

Anger – outside of righteous anger when innocents are hurt – has never done me any good at all. I am not innocent and if I’m going to get angry at someone else, I should deal with my own issues first. Stone. Glass house. Log/Sliver. Eye.

When I realized that my anger was only the outer manifestation of fear, it broke the hate button.

Now not only do I see my own fear, but I see anger in others as their own fear. And with some people there is nothing I can do to help them. Nothing they would accept from me. Nothing that would be welcomed.

So I’m left with saddness. They strike out. I flinch and I forgive.

Because I’m convinced to the core of my being that if they saw what I saw. If they knew what I knew. If they walked each step with me day in and day out, they would see. They would know how every choice I make is weighed and prayed. They’d see how the weight of my choices for my family can be measured in tears. How I know there is no perfect solution but only a best for now.

For now I just feel the sadness and tuck it away in my pocket. Carry it with me. Stick a pin in it and visit it often to see if the tone or texture of it has changed throughout the day.

I guess I even tend to it and feed it like the sorry little plant on my desk because I know it’s roots aren’t planted in fear but in love. If I didn’t have any love for these people then I couldn’t feel sad about them.

And sometimes that’s enough to get me through the sadness and hold onto the small seed of love that I want to pass on to my own children. Better to show them how love walks slowly, one foot in front of another than to show them the fleeting feet of anger and fear that never pause long enough to find peace.