Sunday, May 7, 2023

Hope

 It's unbearable, sometimes.


The stories I've heard over the last 445 days. The absolute agony people live in. The secrets. So, so many secrets.


We try. We try again. We keep trying. 

 

We hope. Even when hope is hard.



We quietly walk through the woods, sharing our stories together. 

We weep.

We hug.

We keep moving.



It is exhausting. Having hope is exhausting.

 

Fear is also exhausting. Anxiety is exhausting. Love with absolutely nowhere to go? You guessed it. Exhausting.

 

Sometimes I think I don't have any tears left to cry. Sometimes I feel like all I've done for the last 445 days is cry and surely, surely by now that well must be dry.

 I am always surprised by the tears. By how easily they come.

 

My brother took his own life and that is real.

 

I hate it more than anything I've ever hated, but it is reality and I can't make it go away.

 

I can't make it go away.

 

I stopped watching television (with the exception of every iteration of Law & Order  because Chris Meloni is my secret boyfriend) but I still watch YouTube videos. I watch a lot of stupid, mindless things but lately all I've been watching is 1980's commercials. 

I used to pay for TiVo so I could fast-forward through all the commercials. Now I purposely watch them on YouTube. How the turntables have turned. Or whatever.


Around Christmastime I started watching all the old Christmas specials from my childhood that I could find. I legit sobbed my way through the Garfield Christmas special. I remembered every line. Literally every line. 

I watch the commercials now and I think about my childhood. 

I find myself wanting to go back and figure all of this out. Just fix it. Somehow, someway, make all of this okay again. 


It's this stupid, pointless hope. This hope that I could fix my broken brother, fix my own broken brain, and make all of this okay. All of it.


It's not real. None of it is real.


Except the hope. The hope is real.


The hope keeps me getting out of bed every day. The hope keeps me trying even when everything feels so pointless. The hope is probably the main reason I haven't found myself in the exact same darkness that took my brother away.


Just hope.

 

 

I just don't want to lose hope.


1 comment:

Katie O said...

Hold on to thar hope. Sometimes it seems that's all we have. Love you ❤