It took me a long time to stop hating myself.
I didn’t fully understand why until I was on the other side of that self-hatred.
When you’re queer or “other” in any culturally significant way,
you come face to face with such staggering levels of cruelty.
Telling myself, “There must be something wrong with me,”
was an easier pill to swallow than the alternative.
How could it be possible that so many humans are capable of being
so deeply cruel to each other — for no reason other than difference?
I wasn’t ready to believe that.
I wasn’t ready for the grief, and rage,
and soul-shaking disappointment that would come
from sitting with the weight of that reality.
“Oh, it’s not me, it’s them.”
I wasn’t ready to look at my own shadows or capacity to harm.
I wasn’t ready for the complexity of and/both.
It is easier to look away.
Sometimes the truth of the darkness we’re capable of still shatters me
in ways that I don’t feel prepared for.
But it keeps me close to my compassion.
And it humbles me to remember that I, too,
am made of the same darkness and light that we all are.
All of us are capable of harm when we’re reactive or responding
from a place of unconsciousness, fear, or forgotten humanity.
Compassion and cruelty are choices.
They are both within our reach.
May we choose from love.
May I choose from love.