I have never been a positive person. I learned early on in life that the best thing in the world is to prepare yourself for the worst, for the fall, for the humiliation and for the loss, before they all expose you and get the best of you. If the worst feeling in the world is to not be loved, the second worst is to feel your hopes and dreams crumble like last Autumn's maple leaf in front of your face. It's best to set the bar low, that way when your escape hatch doesn't open, the fall isn't too lethal. If you have bad knees like I do, it's better to get down and stay down and watch the ants file past, as opposed to keep trying to get back up only to get knocked down again.

To hope is to reveal that there is something that you want or need that you just don't know if you can get. Hoping is a flawed policy, clasped hands in the air and your feelings in your eyes, the whole world knows that there is something that your heart is instructing you for, and the whole world can reach for it and take it away. And it's not the humiliation, so much, of falling flat should the world take it away. It's the idiocy of ever allowing yourself to believe that you could ever have something good, that you ever deserved to aspire to more than life feels you should have.

I have never had faith. Faith, by its definition, is a leap. There's no bridge between believing and knowing, I guess that's the whole point of faith. You have faith that when the bird spreads its wings and jumps off the side of the roof that the wind will pick it up and it will soar. You have faith that when you get in the car and insert the key, with a flick of the wrist it all comes to life. You have faith that what goes up must come down, that e=mc squared, that everything the world tells you is correct but which you do not investigate yourself must be true.

And if you're a damaged and dubious girl like me, sometimes that faith is hard.

If I sound bitter it's because sometimes I am. Although reading my site may seem like I get life handed to me on a platter, I truly believe that everything I am rewarded with is due to sheer hard work mixed with a degree of penance and a little dash of karma. As I get older and work harder to try to take care of others, so life amazingly has started taking care of me. Someone as scratched up as I am doesn't get many chances. Previously I had a wild feral instinct of self-defense, like a street kid living rough. Although I never had to learn the pain of being homeless, my only focus was protecting myself, was getting myself through the day. The only person to trust was myself, and in trusting myself the expectations were set as far low as possible-since everyone always expected and demanded the lowest of me I aimed to continue to that. They say that you surround your life with what you knew, and so I wrapped myself in a comforting cocoon of incredible angst and self-degradation.

Hope and faith were things that a person like myself could not afford. It could bring me down. It could show the whole world that there were spaces in my soul, that I lacked, and above all that there was something that I ached for. Life could take that away and in my experience it would, just to cackle and dance in the shattered dreams I'd left behind.

I sometimes think I have changed so much in the past few years that if the current me went back ten years to meet the old me, we not only wouldn't recognize each other but we wouldn't like each other, either. The changes are largely for the better-I am not so self-defensive, my protection is extended to others over myself. Although the ranks are small there are people that I trust, people I depend on. The world is a lighter brighter space that I continue to chase the shadows out of.

Yet I continue to be someone without hope and without faith.

But for the first time in some years I am confronted with something that I do have to be positive about. I have to reach deep down inside of whatever untapped spaced I own and have hope. I have to be optimistic and wish for something, and people have to know about this wishing. I have to have faith in the numbers, when faith is still a commodity I am not comfortable with.

It is so hard and the fall on this one is so spectacularly high. It's higher than idly hoping I'll win the lottery but throwing the wasted tickets in the bin. It's higher than hoping to talk my way out of a speeding ticket but getting one anyway. This leap of faith comes without a parachute, without a cushion beneath me to catch me if I fall. I have to hope, when hope was previously the elusive elixir I've never had my hands on.

And yet I know, every waking moment of the day, that it is something that I have to do and so I concentrate very hard and chase the negative thoughts out with the scent and taste of what I think may be hope.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 09:01 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
Post contains 944 words, total size 5 kb.

1 Good luck with it!

Posted by: Z. Hendirez at May 01, 2006 11:14 AM (ceOV5)

2 Believe me, I understand that thought process a little too well. No matter how things look up for me, I'm always looking for the other shoe to drop, because I know that I don't deserve things to go well for myself. Sounds trite, but I'm thinking of you, and trying to send out all the positive thoughts that I can. I've always been much better at thinking positively for others.

Posted by: amber at May 01, 2006 11:46 AM (6N/eo)

3 I wish I had some words of incredible wisdom to shake you out of your negativity. It seems to me you have had some good fortune in the last year. Hope is the only thing we should never let go of. Good luck in whatever you are referring to.

Posted by: kenjukenju at May 01, 2006 11:55 AM (2+7OT)

4 I used to fear hope. Because if I hoped for something and it didn't happen, then I was a fool. If something I wished on didn't come to fruition, then I was wrong. The older I get, the more I realize that it isn't so bad to be a fool. Being a fool allows me to dream and dreaming makes me happy. And being wrong isn't a crime...it's part of being human. Like most people, I have had many soul-crushing things happen in my life that could give me good reason to go into myself and stop trying, stop loving, live cautiously, in constant defense of what I've managed to save of myself. At some point I thought, what am I saving myself for? What am I hiding from? This is exactly what those bastards wanted me to do - hide. So I started letting go and living again. I read this online journal every day. And when I read that you're down, I'm cheering you on. It's the people who care about you that you can have faith in...we're not going anywhere.

Posted by: Serena at May 01, 2006 01:06 PM (OX+n1)

5 Is Angus an optimist? One person in a relationship must see an up side of the world to balance thing out. Sometime I feel the way you do, but I usually can trick myself to believe that better things are just around the corner(until the lies collapse, then I don't leaave my room for a couple of day, then start all over again). Still waiting. PS Need pics of Gorby for a pick my up now. Thanks

Posted by: Anh at May 01, 2006 01:13 PM (ohEm6)

6 I will hope extra for whatever it is...in the mean time cherish your progress for your world is a better place.

Posted by: Steff at May 01, 2006 02:49 PM (fIFtd)

7 we're right here, hoping with you.

Posted by: becky at May 01, 2006 03:18 PM (jv5jW)

8 I don't know you but I can tell that one of your strengths is learning from past experiences. That is a sign of great intelligence. I admire your wisdom. I Hope the me in ten years does not recognize the me now.

Posted by: T at May 01, 2006 08:31 PM (hrmjB)

9 A long time ago I didn't have much faith either. I still don't really think I do, but when I go back and look at the last 10 years or so I can see a change. Not expecting a lot from myself may have made it easier to live with my failures, but I began to wonder if it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. I struggle every day to really believe I am entitled to good things, that I deserve to be happy. It is a long road, but you are headed in the right direction. Life doesn't take as much faith as it does perseverance. Your track record proves you are gonna be just fine. Hope does spring eternal, if you allow yourself to let it in. That is something I have to remind myself of all the time. Keep your chin up. And if there is a such thing as cosmic energy floating around out there, you are getting nothing but postive thoughts from this side of the ocean. On a totally off topic, the minute I read the title of your post I started singing the theme song from "Greatest American Hero". Sad, I know.

Posted by: Teresa at May 01, 2006 11:02 PM (zf0DB)

10 Arrgh! Teresa! Now I'm singing it to. Good thing it's on my iTunes.... Take a deep breath, sweetie, and think positive thoughts!

Posted by: caltechgirl at May 01, 2006 11:46 PM (jOkK0)

11 Arrgh! Teresa! Now I'm singing it too. Good thing it's on my iTunes.... Take a deep breath, sweetie, and think positive thoughts!

Posted by: caltechgirl at May 01, 2006 11:48 PM (jOkK0)

12 Bad fluffy! Double comment! Arrgh. I'm quitting now

Posted by: caltechgirl at May 01, 2006 11:48 PM (jOkK0)

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