Hate is easy; Love takes Courage

Enjoy a random story thing I wrote.

Hate is Easy; Love takes Courage
A semi-fictional Biography

This is about me, about who I am. It's not some grade five assignment, where I write about my favourite colours, my pets and the colour of my eyes. No, this is me doing some serious soul-searching on paper. This is me trying to be honest. This is me stripped down to the point where I need to be built back up again. This is about what makes a person and about trying to be and to know.
I think it was when I was ten years old that I stopped really loving my parents. When people hear me say that they usually tell me to "come on" in this annoying, long suspended tone that makes me want to rip out their eyes and grind them under my foot like a cigarette butt.
Not my cigarette butts. I don't smoke. I'm fairly certain that with the second hand smoke from my dad, and approximately a quarter of my friends, I'm already at the stage of a person who's been smoking a pack a week for five or six years. If I did smoke, I would smoke them down to nothing, butts and all. After all, if I'm going to kill myself I'm not going to go and do it half-assed.
My parents have a thing about doing things "half-assed." They think because something isn't done perfectly or to their own personal satisfaction, it's a half-assed job. It's as if a person can't try their best and fail at the same time. I know that it happens, so why don't they? I don't think my parents would recognize anyone's best if danced on their faces and then shit on it. I know they haven't seen mine, as much as I try to show it to them.
If "half-assed" is my mother and father's favourite expression, mine is "I don't know." It's an all purpose answer, that can easily answer all the basic philosophical (or otherwise) questions in one quick shrug and mumble, while flaunting the fact that I'm much too cool for this and I couldn't possibly care less either way, and that you should feel very inferior to me. Problem is, when I actually and regretfully do not know the answer, but wish I did, people usually just give up on me. They tell me to stop being cynical and mean for one minute and to be serious. I think it's worth it in the end though. It's like this protective layer around me so that I don't have to give anything up, let anyone in unless I want to. Which I usually don't.
I remember when I was seven or so, and my father and I were in a parking lot. He was yelling at me and asking, "why couldn't I just be a good kid?" I don't even remember what it was I had done, just that I was crying and feeling like crap. I wanted to be a good kid. I wanted my father to be proud of me, but I didn't know what he wanted me to, didn't know what I was doing wrong, didn't know how to be his "good kid." I shook my head, hid in my hair, and tried to hide my tears. My father had me convinced that tears were bad things, that no one should ever cry. Especially me, because my tears were somehow "manipulative" and "lies." (Yet another accusation I didn't understand.) He just kept screaming, demanding to know why I was such a bad kid, telling me to answer him. I didn't know what to say, I didn't know the answer, and I just wanted him to stop yelling. I whispered "I don't know" the only honest answer I could come up with, but my father just proceeded to become even more angry and terrifying, telling me that I was a little liar and not to give him such a bullshit answer. I didn't understand why he was saying this, but I understood one thing. "I don't know" was a bad thing to say, and a sure fire way to push my father's buttons. It's a scrap of knowledge I kept with me to this day.
But back to me not loving my father and my mother. People always tell me "come on," and that "everyone loves their parents, deep down," and I "just don't like them right now." Usually I just nod and say something like "Yeah you're probably right" in a bored and slightly lazy way, while I'm actually thinking, "Right, cause you would know? You know EXACTLY how I feel about things? Wonderful. You can stick around and tell me how I feel about everything from now on. Oh, do I like mushrooms? No? Alright what about cabbage then?"
My parents and I don't really get along. I don't understand them, but not for lack of trying. I try to do what they want for the most part, not out of love but out of a sense of duty. They try to do their best for me I suppose. But they honestly do not know what the best for me is. I guess they try. Sure, why not right? But they throw so much negative at me, so much bad, that for a while it had me depressed to a scary point. It still does sometimes. I often worry I will never be what they want me to be, what I'm expected to be, while at the same time, I don't even know what it is I'm supposed to be. I have a resentful attitude towards them. I respect them to a certain degree, and I try to do them right, but it hasn't gone much beyond that. After all, how can you love someone who is constantly tearing you down?
I know for a fact my parent's don't understand a thing about me. They have their lovely little theories that they base everything about me on. They have a million parenting books and they expect me to act like the kids do in them. Snapping to attention at the slightest command. They don't understand my need for colour and art, my constant need for music, my love affair with writing. They think I waste my time, and everyday my parents yell at me over something I did or didn't do. I get told how terrible I am so much, that I've started to, deep down inside, believe it. Maybe I am who they say I am. I'm going to grow up and do all those sick things they said I would do. Ben says that I won't, Ben knows that I need space and music and notebooks. He understands I need the freedom all teenagers crave. He knows that I don't mean anything by it when I say something cynical that approaches a little closely on mean, and that I'm always sorry when I realize I've hurt a feeling. He understands some of my thoughts even when they are still in motion.
Ben says that my thoughts are like ropes. They wrap in circles and seem to go on forever, to lead you nowhere, but before you know it, they're all around you and strangling you and forcing you to acknowledge them. I'll deliver a one line biting comment to prove him wrong when he says that, but he'll always just laugh in my face and tell me to "drop the act, lets go for a walk."
Having Ben around is good for me. He keeps me from digging myself into a hole and hiding from the world while occasionally calling out mean comments to helpless passers-by. He makes sure I crawl out every now and then, and stand in the sun, briefly submitting to the fact that the world is not such a bad place all the time. He's always telling me I need to stop being depressed, that I need to smile more and that pushing every single person in my life away from me might not be the wisest idea I ever came up with. I don't mind all too much when he tells me things like that. Not the way I mind when other people tell me. I know Ben is just looking out for me, that he cares for me. Even if he sometimes cares about me only because he needs me. I guess, cynical and depressed though I am, I somehow help him like he helps me. Sometimes I wonder if the love I lost for my parents somehow went and attached itself to Ben. Not a sexual love, but a love you can depend on and trust. He's like a brother to me.
I'm really not as hard and cynical as I come off as. I am becoming more and more convinced that I am a good and well-meaning person, deep down. Chalk one up for my friends and their illogical faith in me, which leads to a subtle faith in myself. One that grows and shrinks depending on what my parents say to me, how bad my depression is at any present moment, and how busy I keep myself.
I do believe that I am a rather compassionate person when the occasion calls for it. I am blunt and honest and sarcastic (my own personal brand of humour) and quite possibly schizophrenic, but when my friends are down and in need, I always throw everything aside and do my best to just be there for them. Sometimes I get out of control with it though, and I don't know when I'm killing myself or wasting away, or becoming a big ball of stress while I'm trying to help my friends. I guess it leads back to the fact that I love my friends more than I love myself. Twisted huh? I'm like that. I'm intense and driven in such a way that when I go all in on something, I really am all in, for better or for worse, even if it kills me. Maybe it's a stupid idea and the people in my life aren't worth that, but it's just what I do. Don't know why.
People say I hide in my hate. I don't, I honestly don't! I'll admit I do hide, but not in my hate. I try so hard not to hate. I hide in my 'self-esteem'. I hide in my smile and my singing, and in my writings. I hide in the love my friends give me and in the little love I can return. Hate is easy; Love takes courage, and I am slowly working my way up there. Maybe my love isn't honest all the time, but I am out there trying. I'm trying not to let hate control me and to love as much as I can.
I still have this unwavering belief that tears show weakness. I don't let people see me cry, and I won't show when I'm unhappy. That would be exposing weakness, and then people can hurt me. I'm afraid of getting hurt by people, so I don't let anyone in close enough to give them the chance. Of course Ben is different. He somehow wiggled and wedged into the little spot I was willing to give him, and then just steadily grew until things were out of control. It's dangerous and terrifying, and he has certainly hurt me a fair few times, but I think, oddly enough, that's good for me. I don't understand why right now. I suppose I'll know why when I'm older. I don't have all the answers now, as much as I wish I did.
My school has something called Advocacy. It's a stupid little course you have to take all four years of high school if you want to graduate. Pretty much we just sit there and talk about pregnancy screwing up people’s lives, how binge drinking is bad, and how we "feel" about things. I think it was meant to give us an outlet and a "safe zone" but in reality, it just makes it easier to fail high school. It's held twice a week for half an hour, and cuts into certain classes. That may be the one good point about that piece of shit class. Getting out of Pre-calculus or Gym half an hour early.
Today my Advocacy teacher asked us if we could meet anyone from any point in the history, who would it be? I chose Joseph Stalin, so we could have a spirited conversation on the pros and cons of Communism. My teacher just said "Good ideas, way to back them up! Way to go!" In that ecstatic voice that only gym teachers could make. For Advocacy, every teacher in the school has to teach a class, and lucky me, I got the gym teacher. No matter WHAT I say, I always get perky, athletics-based comments. "Way to go! Good effort! Nice job! Great teamwork!" At first it was disconcerting, but now it doesn't even faze me, I can see that he's a great guy underneath the stereotypical and "inspirational" phrases he uses.
Honestly though, if I could meet anyone, from any point in time, I would pick myself, in about twenty years or so. I want to see who I'll be then, what I'll be like. How I got there. The choices I made, the risks I took, the mistakes I made. Maybe even some of the good things that happened to me. The future both scares me and fascinates me. I think if I knew what it held in store for me I wouldn't be as scared shitless of it. It's like being afraid of the dark. It's not the dark itself that scares you, but what could be lurking in it, waiting for you. That's how I feel about the future.
Tessa and her boyfriend Evan decided to "take a break" the other day. Things like that always distress me. I like solidity in other people, because even though I hate it in me, I feel the overwhelming desire to have it somewhere in my life. I hate commitment, but I love seeing others commit. I hate relationships because, once again, I won't let anyone get that close, but I get so sad when other people break up. Everyone has basic needs and I fulfill mine through other people. Not in a weird, creepy way, but in the sense that while I am off being free and wild and lonely, the people closest and most important to me are being calm and together. It's all about needing a sense of balance. It may not be fair to expect what I can't or refuse to have in myself from other people, but my friends seem to be okay with it, seem to understand. That, or maybe that whole aspect of me has just blown right by them. There is however, something to be said about the idea and feeling of empathy here, which I suppose I have. When my friends are unhappy, I am unhappy with them.
I'm in circles again. Everything I say always loops back on itself, bringing back ideas I've had before, words and phrases I've said and things that I've done are constantly brought to surface again and again until I don't even realize it anymore.
When I'm sad I get quietly self-destructive. I draw within myself so slowly that people hardly even notice it, until all of a sudden it's normal for me to be sitting with you for hours and not say one word the entire time. I push away the people I need most, because when I get depressed, I don't feel I deserve them. Ben is the only one who can see when I'm doing this, and can pull me back into the real world. He wants me to go get help. I always say "maybe" or, "I'll think about it" but we both know that I'll never go and do it unless he practically drags me there kicking and screaming. I couldn't get 'help' because I wouldn't know what to say, what's wrong, or what they expect of me. (I hate it when I don't know what's expected of me) And, I'll be honest, once again; a small part of me is screaming I don't deserve help. I don't deserve to get better.
I hate guidance councillors. I hate their waiting area with comfy chairs to entice you. I hate the happy, overly bright posters. I want to take those posters and rip them apart, and shove them down the throats of the councillors. Oh my god, I hate the councillors. I hate their smiles and the box of Kleenex they offer you before you even say a word, as if you are such a nutcase that you're about to burst into tears the moment you look at their fake sympathetic smiles that say both 'I'm here for you' and 'Spill your guts so I can analyze you and then tell the whole world about how fucked up you are' I hate how they always look at me, as if at any moment I'm going to bolt like a little bunny. I hate the whole damn place.
The way it works is people either love me or they hate me. I have this sense of 'get-up-and-go-do-something-or-die' that scares the shit out of people, and myself. I need to be moving all the time. If I'm not busy or moving I get sad. I get sad a lot anyways though.
I talk loudly and abstractly. I'm fine looking like an idiot and I'm often blunt to the point of hurting people's feelings. People either love my sarcasm or hate it. I either love people or I hate them. There are hardly any middle points for me. Like a manic-depressive, except in every aspect of my life.
I often have paint on my hands from throwing colours at walls and sidewalks and floors. I hate white. I hate empty. Today I went out and painted a tree stump. I wrote 'Miss me', 'Please', and 'Live. Stop writing about living and just Live' on it in permanent marker. Someday someone may read that and think about what it meant, what the person who wrote it was thinking and feeling. Then they'll start thinking too.
I like to believe that my writing and scribbling has some importance. I like to believe that one day I'll be famous and my notebooks will be praised and read by millions. Or sometimes, I believe that one day I'll die, and sometime after that, maybe a year, maybe fifty years later, someone will find my notebooks, and read them. They'll read them and understand them and become inspired by them, and through that, be inspired by me. I want to live forever, even when I want to die early. Maybe especially then.
I can't do cartwheels. I've been trying for over ten years, and I simply cannot do a cartwheel. It's a silly thing to be so obsessed with, but I just love the idea of it. Of running, jumping, and then all of a sudden, the world is upside down and in motion. Then just as suddenly, the world is as it should be again. Besides, I've been trying for this long, why give up now? Every 11:11 I wish that tomorrow I would learn to do a cartwheel. I'll get up the next day and try and try and try until my ass is sore and my elbows are bashed up and I'm so dizzy from falling I can't walk straight. 11:11 fails me an awful lot. That's why I never wish for anything big. If 11:11 fails me on the little things that I can work for, how can it possible help me with something huge and impossible? It'll only lead to heartache. At least this way I can feel disappointed in myself and not in magic and wishes and dreams coming true. It's a loose hold on a childhood fantasy, but it's a hold none the less. I never wish for something I won't work for.
I don't believe in God. I ask the air for things and tell the air what I need as my own personal form of prayer. Maybe the wind will take it away from me, and inadvertently it will reach a person who will suddenly have an epiphany, and feel this sudden pull towards me. Somehow that person will just happen to have or be able to teach me exactly what I need. But I try to be self-reliant, because for all I know the wind will just laugh at me and carry my thoughts out to sea. Trying to work things out for myself is pretty much the only way to get things done. I hate asking for help. It's another one of those things I just can't do.
Every time I tell Ben that I love him he cringes. He doesn't understand that it's not the kind of love that makes me want to jump his bones or anything like that. It's just that I have love I need to give, and he happens to be the person it fell to. I don't like how he doesn't like that I love him. It hurts. I don't care that he doesn't love me, but I sometimes wish he understood that the need to give love is even greater than the need to receive it, and giving love is one of the hardest things a person can do. He doesn't have to return it, just accept it.
I love driving really fast in cars. It'll be the death of me one day, I know, but the speed and the risk and the rush all make me so happy and so giddy, that I just let loose. I laugh and laugh and cry until I feel empty and calm and ready for whatever's next. Going fast lets my emotions out. It's like when you're at the top of a roller coaster, just about to take that drop. You suck in the cool air and you can feel that bubble rising inside you, full of sick fear and sweet anticipation. Then you're over the top, hurtling down towards certain doom, screaming and letting that bubble out, as the wind makes your eyes water and your scream turns into a laugh that you choke on. By the end you're breathless and hysterical and you realize that it let so much out of you; that it let you empty yourself of all your pent up rage and sorrow and then speed past it, so you have room inside you to be you again. It's better than drugs. It's better than drinking. It's release in and about itself. It is a type of magic that you can share.
I believe what my dreams tell me. Simple as that. I believe that dreams are really just my one self, talking to my other self. It's like a screen has been removed in my mind and I am free to move about and fully understand things. But unfortunately, when you wake up the screen is back, and you are left to try to understand and interpret what exactly it was you had understood. Problem is, sometimes it's really hard to understand why in the world you stood in the middle of the desert, counting the spots in front of your eyes that staring at the sun had created, while mice square-danced around your feet. (Last night. I've pretty much given up on that one. Let my subconscious keep that secret, I really don't want to know)
I sometimes wonder if my parents were ever in love. I watch for it. It's like the glare from a watch. Sometimes, when the light is in the perfect position, if everything is at the right angle, I can see it. I can see that they once loved each other and maybe even still do. I wonder when they stopped loving each other so much. I wonder if it happens to everyone at some point or another. The person you love turns into the person you take advantage of, because you think that because they love you and you love them, you can get away with it. That they let you get away with it. And that's sad. Why do we do that? Why do we let ourselves hurt the people that we love the most? Pretty soon the hurt we inflicted on each other and was accepted gets built up and built up until you reach the point where you simply don't love each other anymore. You can't. You've hurt each other too many times.
I keep my heart closer to me than anything. I don't think being in a bad place with my parents, or being depressed defines who I am. After all, that could change in a matter of days, but I think the basics about me will always be the same. I may love my parents again in a few years; after I forgive them for they way they've made me feel about myself. I may go and get the help I need thanks to a friend I love. I may not. But I'm here everyday trying. (A major defining point about the character of a person in general.)
I'm made up of so many people. I am the combined effort of the people I know and who love me. I am the girl who likes anonymity and the limelight. I am the friend you don't understand and the hand you reach out for blindly. I am an odd and never ending mixture of opinions and I am myself in your own entirety. Am I making sense? Do you understand me? Well I shouldn't. I'm not trying to. I'm simply trying to tell the truth in the only form I know how. Contrasts, biting wit, hidden meanings, and a little bit of sarcastic humour. I'm just a person who sat down to try to figure things out. I have paint on my hands and my jeans, and pencil smudges on my face from rubbing it. I tell the blunt and scary truth, remember that? Here's the truth about this. It's not all about me. It's about Ben and Tessa and Evan. It’s about my mother and father and every other person in my life who has affected me. It’s about me, but it’s about how I got here, and who made me this way. I’ll leave you with one final thought and one final question. Should I thank them, or blame them?

With love.