Hope is a lot like faith, only more honest.
Retreat is the theme in my head. Retreating from unhealthy relationships. Retreating from social media. Retreating from insincerity. Retreating from the outside world. Retreating from humanity. Crawling back into the soft dark where no shapes are discernible and everything feels close and tweedy.
I think I'm not alone in my retreating. I see it everywhere.
I keep trying to find the excitement I usually feel at this time of year, not because of Christmas which I have never looked forward to nor loved, but to the New Year.
The week between Christmas and the New Year has, for many years now, been my favorite week of the entire year. It's when all the holiday rush is over, everyone is exhausted, and so everything finally slows down. I think the air gets more quiet and keen. Often it gets colder and thinner so that all animals must conserve what they have. I enjoy that.
The yearly reset date is only two days away and I feel nothing but a wish to retreat. To disappear. To vaporize myself.
In my almost 40 years of life on this planet I have gone through only two periods of time during which I was blank of hope: the suicidal years, and now. Even when I was always so scared when I was a kid. I don't remember a day of my childhood going by when I wasn't living in fear but I always had at least some glimmer of inner hope that life would someday get better; that next year would be better than this year. Tomorrow, as that insufferable awful Annie likes to shriek, is what we're pinning all our expectations and hopes on when today is unbearable.
Hope is a lot like faith, only more honest. Hope is what we dream of; how we want life to be but with the understanding that it may never come to pass. Faith is an expectation of how things will be. Faith is an adamant belief that things will turn out a certain way with no hard evidence to support the belief.
Hope has more humility in it.
Hope is the ardent belief in the endless possibilities in the universe, not in probabilities.
I don't remember how to rebuild it from nothing. It's been so long since the light of my hope went completely out. I don't know how to find it. I didn't know this could happen again.
I wonder how long humans can survive without it?
So if any of you have lost all hope and then rebuilt it, please tell me your secrets.
And if anyone tells me to "just get over myself" I will put a curse on you for your idiocy and your very dangerous game of taunting the person without hope who are a lot like the people with nothing to lose.
Losing hope isn't a self indulgent affectation.
Losing hope is like losing all the skin off your spirit.
So many of you have gone through hideously hard times and lost so much and come through it. So many of you have been abused, lived hard, worked hard, and come through it. So many of you have crashed and burned, started over and over again. I want to know how you stood up again, brushed yourself off, and believed that something good might still come your way.
I am wondering if I need to burn my anger up in a bonfire.
I'm wondering if my anger has a hunger worse than shame and ate up the hope?
I'd like to know how to kick the ass of this year.
I'd like to know how to kick the ass of the New Year before it even gets busy with my life which I feel certain is going to be just as hard as the previous four years of it have been.
I think when you wake up empty one day, as all gas guzzling vehicles will eventually do, you just start walking. You take one step at time whether you believe it will lead you anywhere or not and without faith, and without hope, you just put one foot in front of the other and move forward. Perhaps like a skeleton does when first relieved of flesh; like a drunkard at 6 am with boots on the wrong feet. But you do it anyway.
Maybe you'll just be walking straight into the grave. If you have no hope it hardly matters. The real point is that people who love you expect you to keep moving forward whether you are half dead tired or not.
This is what we do for the people we love. We keep on walking from one day into the next and if the only thing we look forward to is coffee in the morning, that's enough for the people we love.
I would like to build a bonfire and burn my past in it.
I would like to burn all the places I've been.
All the people I've been.
All the words I've ever said.
Including these.
I think I'm not alone in my retreating. I see it everywhere.
I keep trying to find the excitement I usually feel at this time of year, not because of Christmas which I have never looked forward to nor loved, but to the New Year.
The week between Christmas and the New Year has, for many years now, been my favorite week of the entire year. It's when all the holiday rush is over, everyone is exhausted, and so everything finally slows down. I think the air gets more quiet and keen. Often it gets colder and thinner so that all animals must conserve what they have. I enjoy that.
The yearly reset date is only two days away and I feel nothing but a wish to retreat. To disappear. To vaporize myself.
In my almost 40 years of life on this planet I have gone through only two periods of time during which I was blank of hope: the suicidal years, and now. Even when I was always so scared when I was a kid. I don't remember a day of my childhood going by when I wasn't living in fear but I always had at least some glimmer of inner hope that life would someday get better; that next year would be better than this year. Tomorrow, as that insufferable awful Annie likes to shriek, is what we're pinning all our expectations and hopes on when today is unbearable.
Hope is a lot like faith, only more honest. Hope is what we dream of; how we want life to be but with the understanding that it may never come to pass. Faith is an expectation of how things will be. Faith is an adamant belief that things will turn out a certain way with no hard evidence to support the belief.
Hope has more humility in it.
Hope is the ardent belief in the endless possibilities in the universe, not in probabilities.
I don't remember how to rebuild it from nothing. It's been so long since the light of my hope went completely out. I don't know how to find it. I didn't know this could happen again.
I wonder how long humans can survive without it?
So if any of you have lost all hope and then rebuilt it, please tell me your secrets.
And if anyone tells me to "just get over myself" I will put a curse on you for your idiocy and your very dangerous game of taunting the person without hope who are a lot like the people with nothing to lose.
Losing hope isn't a self indulgent affectation.
Losing hope is like losing all the skin off your spirit.
So many of you have gone through hideously hard times and lost so much and come through it. So many of you have been abused, lived hard, worked hard, and come through it. So many of you have crashed and burned, started over and over again. I want to know how you stood up again, brushed yourself off, and believed that something good might still come your way.
I am wondering if I need to burn my anger up in a bonfire.
I'm wondering if my anger has a hunger worse than shame and ate up the hope?
I'd like to know how to kick the ass of this year.
I'd like to know how to kick the ass of the New Year before it even gets busy with my life which I feel certain is going to be just as hard as the previous four years of it have been.
I think when you wake up empty one day, as all gas guzzling vehicles will eventually do, you just start walking. You take one step at time whether you believe it will lead you anywhere or not and without faith, and without hope, you just put one foot in front of the other and move forward. Perhaps like a skeleton does when first relieved of flesh; like a drunkard at 6 am with boots on the wrong feet. But you do it anyway.
Maybe you'll just be walking straight into the grave. If you have no hope it hardly matters. The real point is that people who love you expect you to keep moving forward whether you are half dead tired or not.
This is what we do for the people we love. We keep on walking from one day into the next and if the only thing we look forward to is coffee in the morning, that's enough for the people we love.
I would like to build a bonfire and burn my past in it.
I would like to burn all the places I've been.
All the people I've been.
All the words I've ever said.
Including these.
Comments (7)
Sorry bout that... was having problems re commenting to the celebrations post so just wanted to check.
Anyway, I guess I look at hope and faith a little differently.
To me faith is about belief, it requires the person to truly believe whatever they have faith in is substantial. Alternately hope is more like a wish. I look at it more as a idea that I want to encourage from the universe.
I always find it interesting how language is used with such significant but subtle differences. Thanks for sharing yours.
Kind Regards
Belinda
Posted by simply.belinda | December 29, 2009 12:24 AM
Posted on December 29, 2009 00:24
For me it was medication. This made or makes me normal so I can see more clearly that this is a good life. It has it's ups and downs but there is always something to get excited about I think. I got my seed catalog in the mail and I am envisioning planting seeds in the soil after the thaw and pulling and picking all the divine fruits and veggies! I also made a new year's resolution sort of to go to the coast twice. So come up with a few plans and get interested in them is my advice. :) I don't like giving advice though.
Posted by amy | December 29, 2009 8:06 AM
Posted on December 29, 2009 08:06
you are making me think again...hurts the brain somedays. After several years on meds I can definately say they have helped (and hubby agrees). I don't think I could give them up just yet. To feel so hopeless and helpless is one of worst things to go through...why even bother to get out of bed...but I drag myself up and out every single day. Some are easier than other but on I go. I also hide for hours here on this computer so I don't have to face what is going on around me. Other people seem much easier to face on here. I hope you can find what will work for you...I know your words offer you some comfort and they certainly do for those of us who read them...and so I ramble on again
Robin
Posted by robin | December 29, 2009 10:24 AM
Posted on December 29, 2009 10:24
I wish I had some words of wisdom. I don't, but just keep on plugging away. It just has to get better, right?!? I guess that is the hope part. We can't predict the future, but we can to try shaping it. I would certainly feel a great loss without your honest presence in this world. For whatever it matters, I am sending lots of positive energy your way.
Posted by Tracey | December 29, 2009 2:59 PM
Posted on December 29, 2009 14:59
Faith is a word too closely related to my bible thumping childhood and therefore I don't connect to it, ever. Hope, however, is a word that is like a candle lit with beauty. But in all honesty, I can't say it was hope that did it for me. I really wasn't hopeful, I was scared to death and only knew how to wake up each morning, nothing more. When I nearly died from the bone infection I was rock bottom, physically and emotionally. But it was my family that I wanted to be here for and I think, no, I know it was them that made me fight...and I fought hard. I believe I was a warrior and wasn't going to let the infection win. I was also incredibly bummed that I couldn't care for my family...it took everything I had just to care for myself. There was never a conscious effort to say ok, I'm going to hope that I get better. It was simply what it was and I just lived every day as it came, much like survival mode and whether yours is physical or emotional it is still survival.
Shortly before that all happened, Kevin had lost his job of 24yrs and we were without health insurance. $88,000, 11 days in the hospital and three post surgeries later we were still standing. There was nothing to do but stand up(took me 7months before I could walk again and I had to re-learn how)brush ourselves off and march on. Then two years later Kevin was diagnosed with cancer. Our shit insurance only covered minimal care and we were notified that Lance Armstrong's doctor was practicing at OHSU and we went for it. Our insurance didn't pay for a dime but Dr. Nichols cured Lance and we had to try. And try he did and he kicked cancer's sorry ass...to the tune of $37,000. And no, we weren't nor have we ever been wealthy. Lost our savings twice after years of hard work and saving and we are still paying...but who the hell cares anymore. It really does put the focus on true importance. One day, one movement at a time. We think of what we went through and often can't believe we did it or how we did it. Kevin would take the Maxx from Beaverton to Pioneer Center while under the chemo care and sometimes wearing a face mask to keep infection away and I would meet him down there and head up to OHSU for treatment, every day for three months. Through all of that, here we are, me 7yrs infection free and little sign that I was ever sick and Kevin recently celebrated 5yrs cancer free.
I don't know if this helps because I don't have any secrets on how to do it other than to just feel the feelings you have, every minute, every hour and some day they will bring you to a place that offers a place of respite. xoxo
....and the foolish naysayers who offer snarky comments will be turned into toads.
Posted by Kathy | December 29, 2009 9:55 PM
Posted on December 29, 2009 21:55
In the ten years since my 6-month long, life-devastating nervous breakdown, I have come to the conclusion that I don't believe in hope. Hope leads to expectations, which lead to disappointment.
I don't believe in hope. I believe in PLANNING.
Posted by Blaize | January 2, 2010 12:42 PM
Posted on January 2, 2010 12:42
Burning, even if it is merely words on a page describing the blasted thing, ranks highly in my book. I spent part of New Year's Eve burning away parts of last year that have too firm a hold on my psyche. A friend who faces surgery in 4 days joined me and burned her own demons.
Posted by Carol | January 3, 2010 4:42 PM
Posted on January 3, 2010 16:42