To the Core

 In general, I've found myself not bothering with true hate.  I've gotten mature enough not to let things bother me that, both out of preservation for my mental health given what I deal with more days than not, and because the energy spent actively hating something could be far better spent elsewhere.

After the attack on the capitol at the beginning of the month, I was angry and afraid, to the point where I felt exhausted.  I wanted to hug Lux, and keep him safe.  I wanted to have some sort of space in the middle of nowhere, so that I could keep him and Squishy (and of course Oliver) somewhere away from everything for a few days.

I was worried, and still am, but I felt more for the people I care about.

Then almost a week later, I was scrolling through the news, and saw a headline that a man from many of the photos had been identified.  A man that was wearing a shirt that said "Camp Auschwitz".  And in that moment, my only thought was that I hope he's caught, and I hope he rots in a pit somewhere, barely alive but to feel every bit of pain that my family that I lost in the camps had felt.  It was such a heavy, seething hatred directed someone that I wound up in tears.

I'm used to worrying about others, but in that moment, I was afraid again for myself.  Afraid of the small amount of Yiddish I speak casually.  Afraid that I might accidentally mention a holiday in public.  I know I'm lucky in that I can hide the fact that I was raised Jewish, in a way that Lux cannot hide the color of his skin.  It's why I'm always worried about him, and ask him to be careful all the time.

But I also know that I have to hide things about myself or risk the same things.  I can't find my lineage on my mother's side, because I lost so many in Auschwitz, and the ones that ran all changed their name once they got to the states.  In fact, my great grandfather won his ticket to New York in a card game, and only had a record of the name of the ticket he won, so we have no idea what his name even was before that point.  I know about having to hide, and having to protect.

For someone to advertise his desire for genocide, like the loss of six million people was just a joke of  concept, there is no amount of pain that is enough for him.  

And so I will hate, with tears in my eyes, and an anger so hot that I don't know how to manage it, because he makes it so people are afraid when they post online or leave their homes.  He makes it so people worry about loved ones every day.  And until he, and everyone like him is gone, I will continue to have some amount of that hate sitting in me.