I am a hopeful girl.
I’ve discovered this, after years of believing otherwise, years of expecting a new hurt, a new pain, discarding hope for apathy, acceptance. Inside I’ve blossomed into a woman who says things like “It will work out.” or “I’m blessed, even with my wonky floors and overdrawn accounts.”
Hope is a flower which blossoms in a soil of bullshit, the ability to hold our anger and our pain in our hands, draw in a long white breath, and blow it into the wind. Hope is the soul which burns brightly.
Hope is the sun through leaves on a broad Sunday morning.
***
It’s like the memories are leaving me now, at the speed of light they drop from me.
Hands blindly groping when I couldn’t say no.
The beeping of fake lungs, the drone. The silence that replaced it.
The shock of being on the floor, anticipating the kick and yet feeling helpless to stop it.
The moist palms, the dry empty eyes.
Voices yelling, whimpering, whispering how useless I am.
Urine softly dripping down my bedroom door, the smell.
The yelling. All the fucking yelling.
Like a switch has been pulled, a tie removed, a barrier defeated, I feel all of this, these past lives, drop behind me. Baggage left at another door, a station, in a dump.
I am free of it. All of it.
***
I have few wishes in life, really. I wish for healthy children. I wish for happy children.
But above all, I wish for children who never know a touch unwanted, a voice raised in anger, a fist in their face, slurring insults. I wish for children who only know love, and kindness and beauty.
A tall order. But I am after all, a hopeful girl.
i was thinking of this, just yesterday, as i walked with the two of mine across the same sidewalks i knew as a child.
i wish for them easier paths, yes…only kindness, love, and beauty. oh, i hope. but more, i wish for them the knowledge i am only discovering – that in spite of whatever happens, there can be kindness, love, and beauty on the other side.
i am happy for you, for this hope.
I, too, am hopeful. I like hope. Hope is like the pessimist of optimism. Because it’s not expectation. It’s just belief in an eventual moment of goodness.