Hello World, are you Listenin’
Alright y’all, it’s Frizzy Time. Get your fuzzy slippers, your stuffed animal, your fluffy blanket, your warm pajamas, and curl up in bed with this thought: things will get better.
The past few weeks (okay, let’s be honest, months), I have opened with something to the effect that this week was weird, or hard, or x, or y, or z. And by now, I think I owe you an explanation… I live in the United States of America, a nation founded on hope, yet whenever I watch the news, go out on the streets, or read anything on the internet, all I find is the exact opposite: destruction. Pain. Loss.
And I’d like to ask you all a very important question: why?
Why do we allow hate in? Why do we cross a line so often and then try to backtrack? Why do people choose sides, or refuse to choose sides? Why do we hurt each other so well?
Here’s your answer: we are human.
They say to err is human, and the truth behind this is everywhere today, but there’s something else that we may be forgetting.
That thing, more important than anything else, is forgiveness.
I must stop here, friends, for I’m sure someone is rolling their eyes. Let’s be clear: I go to church every sunday, I pray, I LOVE God, but I do not read the bible. I do not take what the church says as undeniable truth, and the reason is that rules are created by humans, humans who make mistakes. But the one thing they got right is the power of forgiveness.
To say, “I forgive you” is one of the hardest things to do, and I’ll admit that I fail at it all the time. So here’s another thing you have to remember: I’m 18. I’m legally an adult, and yet I’m still a kid. I have seen sorrow, hurt, faced unimaginable losses in my life, and that makes me wise, or so they say. What it really means is that I have seen too much.
When I forgive, as when others do I’m sure, it’s rare for me to say it outloud. I won’t go up to a sworn enemy and announce that I have forgiven that person because it is not the truth. I remember the pain, I still live with it, and that will not go away, but forgiveness is not forgetfulness.
Forgiveness is about acknowledgement. Forgiveness is a process, and one that hurts just as much as that first pain that the act caused. Forgiveness is never easy, never simple, and never one-sided. Hate is.
Hate is a drug.
It’s an addiction that people hold on to not because they want to, but because they can. It’s easy to hate. Easy to let pain eat away at you. Easy to misconstrue something you saw in other people as something in yourself.
To err is human. Is to forgive to be a god? Immortal somehow because you are privy to the secret of life?
There is no secret.
To hate is human, just as much as making a mistake, and sometimes we swear it is no mistake. We say hate is a strong word, but here are some others: Health insurance, Abortion, Washington.
Each has a connotation bigger than we can imagine. Each carries an image that some want to erase and others want to embrace. Each, in the world we live in today is just a synonym for something different, and it begins and ends with a political party.
Here are some more strong words: Democrat, Republican, Independent.
But what are we beyond this? Beyond who did you vote for in the election? Who did you support? Who would you take a bullet for right now, because that is what it comes down to: who, and what, are you willing to die for.
I can tell you, without a doubt in my mind, without anyone insisting otherwise: humanity.
One simple word, with no conditions attached. People will say I’m a dreamer, people will say I feel entitled somehow, because I’m white, because I live in what most consider paradise, because I have an extended family who live in mansions and never have to worry about how they’re going to pay for college.
I have words too, more strong words: bullshit. I won’t say the others, though they may live in me, because these people would be right. I am white, I live in Hawaii, and I do have cousins who have more money than I could ever dream of. But I am also part of a minority, in Hawaii, where my family, like most, lives from paycheck to paycheck, spacing out when to pay bills based on when the monthly salaries get deposited.
Despite what anyone has to say, I believe in the power of people. I believe that one word can change the world. I believe that with one match, a fire can be lit, for good or for evil, and that fire can be extinguished just as easily with one drop of water. Ideas change in the blink of an eye, when no one is looking, but just in time to stir up more dust in it’s wake.
What I have seen this weekend, is more than just dust because it did not start with the weekend. It started with more. More time, more people, more everything, and this is just a way for that more to leak out. Fires rage, dams burst, every day. They hurt, they pillage and rage until their resources are depleted, and even then they hold on for dear life just to squeeze out one more hour, one more minute, in order to complete their mission. A mission that may have started somewhere, and then ended miles away, not even a shred of what was first proposed by those who watched. And yet, in their wake, without fail, another will rise.
From the ashes, there is life. From water comes growth. Sometimes it isn’t always the growth that we want, but life is fickle. It likes change, craves something different, and is shaped by the people around it.
Fueling a fire is not what is needed. Playing a game where one thing is said while another is meant is ludicrous. This is what destroys. Pain on top of pain is not even a step toward healing.
They say change is a good thing, but if everything is circumstantial, how do we know what a good thing is anymore? When all we see is shiny and new, how do we draw a line?
Here is another word, one that gets added as a prefix to other words like: Lust, Hatred, and perhaps the most famous, Fuck.
Here, for all the world to see, is my word: Love.
Not misconstrued, not taken for granted, not meant for any one person, but meant for all in its original form: love.
Love is the hardest of all, because it is easily taken for granted, extended to some but not to all, or extended sometimes but not every day.
Love.
Love is what heals. Love is what grows, more than hate, more than hope, and more than forgiveness. Forgiveness is the tool, but love is the seed we must sow. Hope is the food, so easy to confuse with blind wishes, but it will carry us through. Do not water love with the flames of blame, hatred, bigotry, misogyny. Let it grow and work its magic like nothing else can.
People say guns win a war, but they don’t. Guns end a war that nobody wins. Love forgets what we’re fighting for. Love unites. Love, when all anyone else has left is a big mouth and a bare understanding of the words coming out of it, is what we will survive by.
People say love is a choice, but is it? I fell in love, with my home, surrounded by family that loves me in turn without stipulation. I fell in love, with a school who looked at me as a person, not as a number to add to their list, who didn’t see dollar signs when they looked at my last name. I fell in love, with someone who didn’t speak proper English, while I wasn’t even trying to. I fell in love, with a family I have created, people of all backgrounds, friends, loved ones, even animals, who teach me what it is to be good, to love yourself, to turn love into a fuel in its own right as it is passed on to others, growing larger and larger as time passes and more love is added. I fell in love–I fall in love every day when I see a smile, when I hear a laugh, when I witness help instead of hurt. People say love is a choice. I say love is a necessity.
Love is not a game. It is not something that can be thrown around and then forgotten. It is something that last. Beyond saying goodbye. Beyond words at all. It reaches deep, down where nothing else can, in our hearts, in our souls. Hold on to it yes, but do not hoard it.
Share it instead. Send it to the far reaches of the globe, beyond what eyes can see, beyond what can be heard around you, and wait for it to fill others with what you know. Love is not a weapon. You cannot, despite all attempts, kill someone with your kindness, but you can fill them with love.
Love that burns like a fire, but cools like a swim in the ocean. Love that sparks, sputters, but never dies. Love is where we are all safe, and I pray, with all that is in my heart, with outstretched arms and a family praying with me, that we can all feel safe again.
