hate, love, apathy and One Tree Hill

Tonight I was watching the newest episode of One Tree Hill. For those that don't watch the show, it centers around two half-brothers, Nathan and Lucas Scott, who grew up not knowing each other at all, and then was put on the same basketball team together. They hated each other at first, but as time went on, realized their bond as brothers was a good thing, and became the best of friends.

At the end of last season, the group graduated high school. Lucas declared his love for Peyton, whom he's had an on-again, off-again romance with. This season was different. It fast forwarded five years (the real age of the actors), and shows them dealing with their lives after high school, college, etc., and how they have all changed and grown up. One episode flashes back to when Lucas proposed to Peyton, but she turned him down, not because she didn't love him, but because she wasn't ready to get married. Fast forward to the present. Peyton is back in town, still in love with Lucas, when she finds out he has moved on and is dating a girl named Lindsey. Lucas asks Lindsey to marry him, and when Lindsey realizes (during the wedding) that Lucas still loves Peyton, she leaves him at the altar.

In tonight's episode, Lindsay calls Lucas to tell him that she's dating someone else. He gets really drunk at a bar, and Peyton finds him, half-passed out. She takes him home, and as she's getting ready to leave, he wakes up, looks at her and says "I wish you'd never come back here. I hate you. You have ruined my life."(And then goes back to sleep.)

They say that hate is one of the strongest words out there. We are taught to say that we "dislike" someone, or use some other word such as that. Hate has so many connotations to it; there's nothing more harsh than telling someone you hate them.

How many times have you wished that you could say that to someone? What is harder for me isn't the use of the word "hate", but the honesty and vulnerability that it takes to tell someone to their face that you hate them and that they've ruined your life.(Outside of screaming it at your parents when you are 14 and mad because they won't let you pierce a body part).

Most people believe that the opposite of hate is love. Love is an even harder word to say to someone; at least it is for me, unless the object of my love is someone under the age of 8. I have always had a hard time saying it, and an even harder time showing it. To have the nerve to tell someone that you love them is an incredible show of strength and vulnerability all at the same time. I wish I will have that nerve someday to tell him how much I love him.

Most people believe the opposite of hate is love; it's not. The opposite of hate is apathy. Apathy is much more hurtful, much more painful than hate. Hate means that you think about them enough to have an emotion; apathy means you don't care enough to even hate them. And that's the one that hurts the most for me. I can take hate, I would be happy to take love; but to think that someone doesn't care at all is incredibly painful.

So please, let me know you care...and dare I hope, love me?