Hopeful

Hopeful, always gonna be hopeful/ Hopeful, that's all I am
-Teitur-

When I was growing up, the only time that unfair things really seemed to happen were during school. Heaven forbid that something really awful should happen during summer or (gasp) Christmas break. However, as I have grown I have had to face what everyone faces: 

Unfairness in life has no off season. 

January has always seemed to me to be such a hopeful time. Yes, it's snowing in a lot of places, and the days can be dreary, but I can also set goals, find new ideas, and reset my life. Looking at all those goals always feeds this hope inside me that maybe after I have met those envisioned finish lines, maybe then I will be better, maybe then I will be everything I want to be. Maybe all this hoping will change something. 

And then LIFE. UNFAIRNESS. WARS. DISEASE. HATRED. Oh, right, I forgot. No off season to life, no stopping any of this, no saying "This is NOT what I wanted for my friend, my parents, myself, or the world. No, take it back." Life carries on, untouched. I may as well throw rocks at the moon. 

And hope? Emily Dickinson describes it as the thing with feathers, perching in the soul and singing a wordless tune unceasingly. A wordless tune. Hope always seemed to be such a shy creature to me, unable to even put words to her song, but maybe Dickinson had the right idea. What are words, really, in the face of tragedy and discouragement? Merely pebbles lobbed at a crater thousands of miles away. It is better to sing wordlessly, to hum while thinking on what we know to be true. 

Thinking of all those goals I have does nothing. Being in better shape or reading more books might make me more confident. They may help me deal with what is troubling me. What will feed that little shy bird inside me, though, the one who sings in the storm? What I know to be true is this: God loves me and is not giving up on me; I love my family, they love me; my friends are being honest with me about how much they hurt; my parents and I are still finding things to laugh about; sometimes my Lyme does not get the better of me; somedays God's mercy registers with me and everything finds a semblance of rightness in my head. That's when the little bird's clipped feathers begin to grow back in. 

My Dad and I went walking tonight and found a shattered mirror by a dumpster. I knelt to finger the pieces, and brought one home with me. The edges were sharp, so I cupped it gently, watching the moon loom bright and white behind me, finally caught with a bit of glass. LIFE. I will hum in spite of you.

I will be hopeful. 

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