Hoping for Hope

Have you noticed a slight lack of hope lately?  Do you find yourself straying from the "everything's going to be ok" to the "f*7k it" side of the spectrum?  If so, I am quite certain that you are not alone.  And so I find myself hoping for hope, for all of us.

I have a good friend who is generally on the sunny side of things.  He can get extremely emotional and have outbursts of the-world-is-ending-ness, but for the most part when things get down, he is relatively up.  He has been through some pretty horrible stuff and yet he just keeps going and keeps up his faith in others (sometimes to the shock and misunderstanding of those watching).  But he just keeps plugging along, trying to get through the days.

But the other day, we were talking about unimportant daily droll, when he said something to the tune of "that will happen if they're lucky.  Not that I believe in luck any more."  It was horrible.  This person who I had taken for granted to always look for the silver lining was admitting that he (like many) sees nothing but gray.  No other part of his demeanor or conversation betrayed this undercurrent of despair.  But that solitary comment made me really, really sad.

I, too, have been unable to see the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  And when opportunities come, lately I have been afraid to let myself hope for the best.  I used to be the most irritatingly cocky person in the world--I somehow knew "the secret" (puke) and knew that things would work out.  But after a few years of being smacked around, it's hard to dare to hope.  For ME.  But hearing that sort of emptiness out of others makes me want to fight.  I want to beat the heck out of anyone and anything that dares stand in my friend's way of happiness.  He deserves so much good, and I can't bear that he doesn't see it coming his way in the future.  We all do.

And so, my valliant cohorts in life, if you have any suggestions on keeping the faith, I'm all ears.  And with all of my might, I will hope for you to be given the most elusive of gifts these days--I will hope with all of my might that you can see lights at the end of your tunnels and sunshine through your clouds.  Because if the Cubs can come back from an 8-0 defecit as they have tonight, anything is possible.  Sure, they'll lose the game by 1 in extra innings.  But at least there was a small sliver of hope and it was enough to keep the TV on.  And in the hours, days and months ahead, may you have your own glimpse of a bright side.

UPDATE:  The Cubs won 10-9, without need for extra innings.  Have faith, ye faithless.  Have faith.