You’ve heard it. That old saying – “There’s a thin line between love and hate.”

If you’re like me, you’ve probably heard that saying all your life. And honestly, I suppose I’m lucky to say that I have managed to go 34 years without really fully understanding what it meant. Not sure how I managed to escape that sentiment, but I did. There’s no one in my life that I’ve ever hated; or, for that matter, that’s ever hated me (to my knowledge).  And even if I did hate someone, how could I have loved them first?  That’s ridiculous!  What kind of sense does that make??

Oh.

Now I get it.

Love.  Love is intense.  It’s passionate and all-consuming.  It gets your heartbeat racing, makes you do stupid things you never would have dreamed of doing before, makes you barely recognize yourself.  It takes over your brain cells.  It’s like a drug.

Hate.  Hate?  Hmmm.  Turns out hate is exactly the same thing.  It does all those things too.  All-consuming.  Heartbeat racing.  Making you do stupid things you’ve never done before…barely recognizing yourself.  And so on, and so forth.

When love is taken away at a moment’s notice, what are you supposed to do with all those feelings?  When you’re on the receiving end of “we need to talk…,” you probably weren’t expecting to have to chuck all those emotions at the drop of a hat.  But yet, you have to.  You really aren’t given a choice.  And I’m not sure the human brain (heart?) is equipped to do that.  So, it has to compensate.  It has to channel all those feelings and emotions into something else.  With hate being so similar, and being something that, let’s face it, feels slightly better than unrequited love – it’s easy for the love to slowly slip over to hate.  Too easy.

Is that a bad thing?  Eh, I don’t know.

I’ve always been the kind of person that sees the good in everyone – even when it might not even be there.  And being that kind of person, that usually means that I tend to take on a lot of guilt and blame for things that might not necessarily be my fault. (I mean, it couldn’t be their fault right?  Everyone is “good” and “kind,” so surely it must be me…)  Maybe it’s time to let myself off the hook.  Maybe it’s time to give myself a chance to really feel anger towards someone.  Even a little bit of hate.  Just temporarily.

Oh, I know it won’t last.  Nothing does.  Nothing.  If life has taught me anything, it has definitely been that.  So, for now, I’m just going to go with it.  I want to be a grownup.  Really, I do.  And I will again soon.  I see the high road up there.  It looks great.  People look content up there.  And hey – I’ll probably climb on up there and join them eventually.  But for now, I’m okay down here on this other road.  It’s a little easier to travel here for a while.  Oh, I know the views are better up there, the people are nicer, blah blah blah.  But I don’t wanna.  I don’t have the strength to climb at the moment.  And that’s okay.

Oh, I’ll heal.  I will.  But on my own time table and in my own way.  And right now – all that love needs to be replaced.  And this – this hate thing – well, this is all I’ve got.  And I’m using it.

Sigh.

This too shall pass….