For a long time, I believed hope to be a cruel thing. Hope wasn’t something beautiful, it was a scythe. It wasn’t something I could hold or something I was friends with.
Hope was callous.
Within the span of four years I had the same extreme trauma happen twice. Trauma I never sought help for but, rather, I figured I could handle on my own. For a while I knew I had changed. I wasn’t the same girl who believed in fairy tales or happy endings. I was hardened, unable to express anger, jealous of my friends who could wake up each day without the burdens I had. Friends whose lives, at such a young age, seemed easy.
Friends who believed in hope.
No, not even believed in it — they just did it. They hoped beyond all doubt because they had no reason to believe hope wasn’t a thing to hang your hat on; that hope was possibly the most dangerous thing of all. Because if you have hope then you have something to lose and there’s nothing more cruel than having something only for it to be ripped away.
I don’t believe that anymore. I don’t believe hope is a cruel prank invented by Loki to make us believe we could have something only for it to never come to fruition. For us to yearn so desperately only to have the thing we want be ripped away before we get to savor it.
Hope is everything.
Having hope, despite no guarantees, is brave. It’s beautiful. It’s something worth holding onto for as long as you can.
The truth of the matter is, we have no control over the future. Anything can happen at any moment, but having hope gives us a semblance of control, it gives us something tangible to lean on when everything else seems lost.
I can’t pinpoint exactly when my mindset changed. I think therapy and age have both contributed to my shift in belief; in thought. But whatever the reason, whatever the cause, I’m eternally grateful. I’m grateful that I now look at the world and see beautiful things. I now think “what if yes” instead of “what if no”. I enter into situations with the belief that the best possible outcome isn’t just something that could happen but something likely to happen, if only I dare believe it.
Dating has always been a tough thing for me. I rarely believed any situation would work out because I lacked hope; lacked the genuinely, deep-seated guttural belief that I was worthy of a good thing and that it’s okay to hope something goes well; that someone could love me back. But this week, I went on a first date that made me believe in hope again.
Now, listen, I don’t know if this guy is anything more than an incredible first date but what I can tell you is that he woke me up to the reality that my person is, indeed, out there. It might take some time but somewhere, somehow, I’ll find him. (How easy and cool would it be, though, if this guy was the guy?) He woke me up to hope — hope for the future, for the things I’ve yet to experience, for all of the good yet to come my way.
(Okay, listen, I had a busy week so I’m writing and editing this after two glasses of wine after my second first date of the week — this one not my person but a delightful two hours none-the-less — and so I’m sorry if I’m talking in circles or this is muddled or you’re like “Jenn what the fuck is this” but guess what? It’s my newsletter and I can do what I want! And I like schedules and routine so this has to go out Friday AM even if this isn’t my best work!)
The point of this entire rambling newsletter is this: hope is beautiful. It’s worth investing in. It’s worth holding on to. And it is, in no uncertain terms, maybe all that we have while we exist on this rock orbiting through space.
It’s brave to have hope. It’s brave to have a dream of what could be; to hope for what’s next. It’s cool to be optimistic and positive and vibrating with all the good energy the universe has to share.
Hope is fucking amazing and, truthfully, I’m sad it took me so long to believe in hope. I’m mad I didn’t see it sooner. But, maybe, the fact it took me so long to get here just means the hope is that much better; that much sweeter. That somehow, someway, the hope I have now is just a bit more powerful.
Now, please enjoy this scene from Under the Tuscan Sun (a movie, arguably, about hope) where the hot Italian man explains that sometimes we need to just do things, not knowing the outcome, but believing (hoping) eventually good will come.
xoxo
Jenn