Work Text:
Inside of Kristen Applebees there is a beautiful idea. She calls it “I don't hate you.” Of the various philosophies and religions she’s studied, this is her ideal. Something that wasn’t negative, wasn’t really positive, and wasn’t totally neutral either. The edge of the pool, between the deep end and the shallow end— caring just enough about the people in the world that she doesn’t resent it all together.
This beautiful idea that exists within her is the only thing she has ever found that she can call universal. She doesn’t hate her friends, she doesn’t hate strangers, and she doesn’t even hate those who are the reason she’s so fucked up (even though sometimes not hating them is hard.)
And it's true, too. Kristen has tried hating her parents, her old community, the various Gods she’s had in her life. But she can’t do it, and more importantly, she doesn’t want to do it. Fundamentally, the thing that makes her parents suck is their hatred. The thing that makes her old community suck is their pretense at love. And the thing that makes Gods suck is their neutrality. So none of that works. The only thing that works is the slope in the floor of the pool.
Here’s another beautiful idea that Kristen is starting to warm up to: ‘I don’t hate you,’ applied to herself.
It admittedly took quite awhile to get to the point where she could think of it that way; probably a lot longer than it should’ve. The idea that she is a person is a weird one. Not because she has a complex— at least, she hopes not. She thinks it's partly because nobody really thinks of themself as a person, and partly because she hasn’t really been treated like a person for so much of her life. The first reason is kinda comforting; everybody is the main character of their own story. Everybody has that inner world, has their own complexities and nuances and narrative. It’s hard to think of yourself being the same as everyone, not because you’re special, but because you’re ordinary.
The second reason is… less comforting.
She used to hate that part of her life. The part that was dictated by what people said about Helio. She hated the little girl who went to bible camps and enthusiastically sang songs about God’s wrath. She thought that girl was stupid, and she was, but she thought it in a mean way.
Kristen doesn’t have many photos from that time. It’s not something she thought she’d ever want. And maybe she doesn’t want them, maybe if she were given the choice to have pictures from when she was a kid, she’d throw them into the fire, or at least cry a whole lot. But sometimes, it feels like she would take them.
Sometimes, she goes on Facebook to look at what her parents posted there years ago, before they moved over to their crazy-people social media. Pictures of her in middle school, which were current at the time, and pictures of her as a small child.
She never saves them, but she goes to look at them, and to her younger self, she says, “I don’t hate you.”
Because if she doesn’t hate that girl, that means there’s at least one person out there who doesn’t hate her.
And because if she doesn’t look at those pictures, who will?
Kristen’s not exactly the same person as the girl in the pictures— actually, that’s an understatement. She’s almost completely different. But if she doesn’t hate her, she can not hate the person she became. Even in the dark of night, when she remembers every mistake she’s ever made, when she worries about the mistakes she’ll continue to make. When she’s on her crystal, looking at the person she was and how disappointed everybody is in that person now.
Even then, she doesn’t hate herself. Because everyone has flaws, everyone has their own inner world, and everyone deserves to have someone in the world who will look at them and say, “I don’t hate you.” Not negative, not positive, not neutral.
If she can’t say that to herself, then who will?