Week Six - Word 4: Hope

 

 HOPE

This word choice was a given...  And I think you'll agree, follows on quite perfectly after my previous entries...  Forgiveness, Courage, Respect & Integrity...

HOPE - as it stands - is one of the most beautiful and powerful words in the world to me...  It envelopes all the most beautiful characteristics and attributes out there - it's the one that embraces them all, gives them a giant cuddle and tells us that there's always a reason....

When I chose this particular word, I had a really big emotional pull toward it... and KNEW it was going to be one of the toughest for me to write about. I think I underestimated its impact though - because when I really started to think about this one, it dawned on me that its basis lay far further below than I gave it credit for.  

You see, I used to think 'hope' was just for the hopeful - for those who had a natural sense of purpose, direction or future... Because I'd negated myself that, I gave up believing I had it in my life - I dismissed "possibility" and a future on the basis that I didn't deserve any of it - I'd already accepted that I had no future...   (god, I hate admitting that... it breaks my heart).

I'd watch everyone else experience things in their lives that I literally could only dream about - and I became a FANTASTIC day-dreamer in the process. But it's a bitter life when you lay there at night dreaming about things that cut you through to your core - because you know in yourself you still don't have, or potentially won't ever have, them "in the real"....

I lost count of how many nights I'd lay there thinking and thinking and thinking, then cry myself to sleep.  My emotions were (and still are) so finely tuned to my day-dreams, that I'd feel ALL the highs and lows of these things in my mind, and then when I'd remember that they weren't even real, well, I don't have words for the pain that goes with that...   That was my nightly ritual for the better part of the past decade and a half...  but it was because it infiltrated my waking hours too, I couldn't do it anymore...  I wanted out. I couldn't 'live' a life that resembled me watching a Hollywood movie in my head - because it always ended in tragedy, and I HATED that with a passion...    It wasn't enough I was envious and heartbroken watching everyone else 'live' - but my own head was attacking me from within... it was just monotonous...

It was only very recently that I was able to finally break through that (and if I'm honest, I still slip often.)  There's so many things in my life I've missed out on - SO many gaps - I feel a bit like a piece of swiss cheese!!   (you know - a bit different, a bit nutty, but full of freaking holes!!)  

I took myself out of 'life' because I felt like I didn't deserve to live - then day-dreamed an existence that would only break my heart even further...  I completely wiped any signs of 'future' out of my eyes because I couldn't handle the thought that THAT was how it was planned out for me...   What cruel, nasty, spiteful 'being' would write that sort of hateful existence for a person - what did I do wrong?!  ... and WHY was I being punished?!     (I still question that... )

SO, when people would talk of what they wanted in their 'future' and all its possibilities (career, travel, partners, houses, babies, weddings, parties, anything...) - when they'd make plans for a few weeks, a month, a year down the track (least of all two, ten, twenty... ) - I was always in awe, and always (ALWAYS) bitter and broken that I couldn't do the same.   I was never brave enough to make plans or dreams - in fact, I forced myself not to, because I didn't want to let someone else down when I wasn't going to be there...  I hated starting something that took too long to finish, or committing to something that required me to be "locked in" for months ahead in time - least of all years - when I didn't actually plan on being there by then at all.  The only plan I had in my mind was me not being here at all...  I just didn't tell anyone.   That was my burden to bear...   

Instead of making beautiful plans, putting faith or belief in the fact that I'd somehow find all those elusive things that would fill all those gaps... I was 'hoping' for an easy answer instead - an easy out..   My hope lay in me just fading away, so I didn't hurt anyone, didn't make anyone else suffer or cause fuss or mess...  I'd "hope I'd just go away"....    But there's nothing positive in that version of 'hope'...

When I started my weightloss mission a few years ago, I was more inclined to expect failure than believe in success.  Let's face it, in my eyes I had nothing, I was nothing, I had nothing to look forward to, nowhere to be, nowhere to go, noone to aim for... nothing.  I'd negated ALL 'hope' that something would actually help - painfully, I was still alive, even THAT "hope" had failed me...!!

So you can imagine, from coming from a place of that extreme - through to three years later - where my 'hope' has completely changed in structure and connotation....  this one particular word both shatters and rebuilds me - and I don't know if I can truly explain that?!  My whole existence hinges on the fact that I'm now encased in 'hope'. 

HOPE, now, in all its pure beauty - sends "sunshine" through my heart.  Hope saw me at my worst, forgave me my indiscretions and willingness to fail, and held my hand when I finally found the courage to make change. Hope was the little light in the corner of my heart when the rest was pitch black - and it was the hands that held me up when I'd fall.

Hope has been with me from day one - when I honestly believed I was alone...

HOPE is neither a negative OR a positive - it's an "ungiven" and an "unwritten"...    There's no answer, there's no tangible, there's no 'yes or no' - it's a belief, a feeling, a subtle nudge, an awakening, a new beginning...   It can be ANYTHING!   It changes shape and form, it changes character, it has the power to influence and manipulate and drive...    Hope is enforcing, hope is enchanting, hope is encouraging and hope has the most amazing capacity to heal.... 

I honestly used to think I had no HOPE within me, but it's one of the five factors - my five words - that has reshaped who I am, how I am, why I am and where I'm going...   It's the illusion of what's not yet to be - and the conjurer of dreams that I now let myself believe!   

Hope plays with my day-dreams now, not to spite me or make me suffer anymore - but to help propel me, give me direction and fill me with a sense of purpose. It let's me know that if I just keep trying, and just keep moving forward, that one day I'll get to have all those beautiful things I envy so much in everyone else... 

Hope will never leave you - even when you want it to...  It's what drives you...   It's your own inner-magic and will always work WITH you.   Hope built my forgiveness, my courage, my respect and my integrity - it's the "unwritten, all encompassing" that's finally given me reason.... 

Hope won't let me down - it's got big plans for me now. My life, and all its amazing possibilities in the future lay in its hands.... 

... and VERY much leads to my final word, tomorrow! 

:)