Monday, July 8, 2019

the capacity to hope

i walked up to my favorite breakfast place this morning - the one where everyone on staff knows me and have the usual things i order committed to memory. they ask if i even need a menu when i'm being seated. it's a nice place and i enjoy each and every visit.

on the walk home, i started thinking about my current situation and then about the course of my life since childhood. i thought about how many times i've tried to build the life i have wanted for as long as i can remember - a home filled with love, a job with meaning and purpose, friends who would always welcome me into their lives as i would them, and, perhaps, a special companion who would love me because of who i am. i've thought of all of the attempts made to establish this kind of life and how each time it has all come crashing to the ground, and how, with each devastating loss, i've had to figure out a way to move on and try again.

i thought about how with each new start, it's become increasingly difficult to believe that my life will be anything but a long trail of disappointment after disappointment. i thought about how the sad thing about getting older is it seems the capacity to hope diminishes.

there are people in my life who wonder why i can get so sad, so depressed when disappointments happen. i wonder, given my experiences, how i've managed to make it through life as far as i have.

that's a long time....

was eating dinner this evening. a conversation turned to my making a comment about something happening in 2018 at a time when i had moved ba...