Setting fire to the sh*t list

Have you ever hated anything or anyone? I mean, really hated - deep down in your gut? I don't mean something you merely dislike. I don't mean someone who annoys you. I don't mean someone who grates on your nerves. I don't mean somebody who pisses you off.

I'm talking about hate.

From en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate:
Hate [or hatred] is an emotion of intense revulsion,
distaste, enmity, or antipathy for a person, thing, or phenomenon; a desire to avoid, restrict, remove, or destroy its object. (Emphasis mine)

Well, stand by. I am about to scare you.

I hate. My hate is so intense that every time I think about this person, my skin crawls. I feel physically ill and want to throw up. My jaw tightens. My eye twitches. My pulse quickens. My head throbs.

From "Walt Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea"
Captain Nemo: Do you know the meaning of love, professor?
Professor Aronnax: I believe I do.
Nemo: What you fail to understand is the power of hate. It can
fill the heart as surely as love can.
Aronnax: I'm sorry for you. That's a bitter substitute.

Bitter, indeed.

I know that it's not very Zen-like of me to hate, but I do. I have tried for seven long years to let go of this hate, but I have not yet been successful. This hate is directed toward my ex-husband.

These seven years we have been divorced, all because of the evil he unleashed. He does not make waves very often, but when he does, my little illusion of sanity goes out the window.

"Let it go," I've been told. Easier said than done. If I had my wish, he'd disappear from my life and my children's lives forever. He only makes token attempts at visitation. Do you know how many times he visited the children last year? He visited twice. TWICE.

He is only allowed four hours of visitation at a time, so that's a total of EIGHT HOURS over a span of 365 days.

He averages visiting them 2 to 3 times a year. At four hours a pop, one can hardly call that "attempting to forge a relationship with his children."

In my eyes, they're not even his children. To them, he is nothing more than a sperm donor. We separated (by order of the court, mind you) when the kids were still infants. He was physically abusive, if you haven't guessed by now.

The only father my boys have ever truly known is my husband, Mike. Mike knows more about these kids than my ex will ever know.

But back to the original topic. I hate the ex. I hate him for a lot of reasons. The main reason, at least for now, is that he won't let us try to move forward with our lives. He keeps stirring things up, and it's over stupid shit. He asked me to send him a Father's Day card! Yeah, so he can wave it around to his buddies and act like he's Father of the Year or something.

Sure, I'll send him a Father's Day card... right after I've wiped the dog's ASS with it! Heh, maybe I should send him a big ol' dog turd as a bonus gift.

Ah, I feel a little better after that thought. I'd love to see him chow down on a shit sandwich three times a day for the rest of his life, though.

And after that, I want world peace.

I am working harder on healing this very black and ugly scar on my heart. I thought at first that I could treat it like a cancer and simply cut it out, but that didn't work. It has to heal. There will always be some sort of reminder scar there, but I need to heal the wound.

One part of Zen for which I am grateful is that feelings in and of themselves are not bad. They're neither good nor bad... they just are. We experience them but we must let them go as quickly as they come over us. It's like waves upon a beach. The wave crashes on the sand. The wave totally consumes the sand - tearing down whatever castles or designs were there. But the wave leaves quickly. The sand assumes a new shape... but its nature has not changed. The sand is still sand. The waves are never the same, but the sand remains constant.

Shit happens. No matter how rigid you've made your schedule, no matter how strong you've built your house, shit's gonna happen sooner or later. It's a fact of life. When the shit happens, we're not going to be happy about it. That's just our nature. We're bound to feel anger, sadness, confusion, disappoinment, grief, rage, hate... whatever. We're humans, not stone statues.

When those feelings flow through us, it's important for us to recognize the feelings. Experience them fully. But then we've got to let them go. We can't be perpetual mourners. We can't stay pissed off at the world. We can't wallow in an eternal pity party. We - I - can't hate forever.

I know this.

I'm working on it... in more ways than one.

Zhi gave me some powerful advice. He said, "Let this person go ... his nature isn't ultimately to harm people - he is, after all, a Buddha - but he lives in delusion. He doesn't know himself and it causes great pain ... pain that he takes out on others. Don't let yourself be pulled into his samsaric world any longer."

I talked to an attorney yesterday. Somehow or another, I am going to turn the last page on this chapter and be done with it.

Oh, happy day.