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We were middle-class children whose parents had worked hard for our future, and we’d pissed it all away like I’d pissed on that stick.
The quote goes on about a woman scorned. Scorned. As if the jealousy of a lover could ever compete with the ferocity of a mother.
If you get to live your life without ever experiencing hatred, then count yourself lucky. Count your blessings. Hate isn’t something to crave or wish for. Never say you hate someone or something unless you really mean it, because hate is not finding a presenter on the telly annoying, or losing your temper with a sibling—it’s an all-consuming living thing that starts in your bowels and infects your blood until it blackens your heart. And I hated myself. That’s the worst kind of hate.
I was too dried out by all the hate that had burned inside me—but I was close to loving him. There was a strong sense of affection blossoming in my blackened shell.
No one is as fickle as the public, and the reason they’re that fickle is that the media tell them how to think and how to feel.
What I hated was the idea that I had to be perfect and if I wasn’t perfect, then they weren’t sad for me anymore.
People are multi-layered. Anyone can have a private side that verges on the dark and dangerous. Your doctor could be a sadist. Your primary school teacher could be a paedophile. Your beauty therapist could be a murderer. It could be anything.
“What is a monster?” she asked. “Is it a scary ghoul hiding behind the bedroom door? Is it some sort of beast with sharp fangs? No. Those things don’t exist. Monsters are men and women just like us, and they have the ability to hide their true face.
The more I thought about it, the more I realised that we are all monsters. Yes. Us. We’re monsters. We enjoy reading about these stories. We’re the voyeurs of human suffering.
No one wants to believe they are weak, but we all have weakness inside us. We have strength, too, but there are times when the circumstances in our lives are so overwhelming that we easily succumb to that weakness.
No one should regret loving and trusting another human being. Yes, sometimes we direct our love and trust to the wrong person, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have done it at all. Hearts should be protected, but they shouldn’t be forced to close.
There’s a kind of strength in weakness that comes from hitting the absolute lowest you can go.
