Hope Is The Promise Of More Time

There's this tendency to want to be able to explain the moments in life when things feel difficult.

Difficulty seems to demand some sort of reason.

Right now, I don't have one. Not one specifically, at least.

It feels like many things, stacked on top of one another, creating an imbalance, waiting to fall over. And the weight of trying to hold the pieces up, trying to keep them on balance, trying to keep it all upright, is heavy.

It's made my breath shallow and my face tired and my eyes empty.

It's just one of those moments. And it feels like it's breaking me. It feels like everything is falling over.

It's not the end of the world, of course. It's not the darkest day I've ever sat inside of. It's not something particularly special or profound or even unique.

It just is what it is.

But it's difficult. It's dark enough. It's heavy. It's a moment.

I try to remember to have "hope". But, right now, examined under any reasonable degree of honesty, that feels like an empty concept. False and floating around without meaning.

The eternal paradox of "hope" is rather simple: how can you have meaningful conviction for things to be better when reality is showing you just exactly how bad things are right now?

At best, it feels counterintuitive. At worst, it feels almost insulting.

Problems and pain take up so much space, they have a clever way of blocking the ability to see anything else. They also take on a transformation at a certain point. They transcend from being invisible forces of tension and become these things we actually start to carry around with us. Large and heavy and inflexible.

Right now, I can't seem to let go.

They're just there with me, constantly, overwhelming and too heavy to hold.

Where does one find the space to hold on to "hope", exactly?

Such a bold proclamation the concept of hope is. And yet, under the current context, it just feels hallow and half hearted.

The only thing that feels remotely real is the hurt. The hurt is tangible, accessible, easy to focus on. Some mystical version of the future feels like a tasteless, insensitive attempt at humour.

How easy it is to mouth the words of perseverance to others and how difficult it is to walk them with our own two feet.

I can't help but think how effortless it is to feel pathetic in these moments.

Moments where you don't feel like much. Where your ego has been beaten and bruised. Where your intellect seems to be busier working against you rather than for you.

Moments where you truly, in an absolute way, don't know what to do next.

Moments like this one.

Here I am.

Someone who still finds myself inside of all sorts of storms I don't feel qualified to face.

I'm trying all the things I know how to try. Deep breaths. Self assurance. Unwavering belief. It's just not working.

And maybe it's because I have a deep rooted misunderstanding of what hope really means.

Perhaps there's no need to take solace in a intellectual concept of hope. Maybe it is much more practical than it seems.

Hope is the promise of more time.

More time to make things right.

More time to figure it out.

More time to learn the lessons we need to.

And time is the thing that can swallow up all your pain and problems.

Because, fundamentally, time is bigger than whatever you're wrestling with right now. Time is bigger than you. Bigger than me. Bigger than everything.

Our problems exist within us, sure, but we we exist within time.

We won't be here forever.

So the notion of hope is really just the promise of time. That there is going to be another chance.

This too shall pass, sure, but it's more than that: it's the realization the everything always passes. Time demands it. The curve of life is always forwards. Because time is bigger than all of it and all of us.

In this moment, now, a promise of hope doesn't take away the heaviness. Or the hard questions. It doesn't illuminate some obvious solution or make obstacles vanish.

But it's existence is evidence of a more fundamental truth: that there's still time.

Time to heal.

Time to love.

Time to live.

And that fundamental truth is stable and sufficient. It's real. It's something to hang on to, if you need to.

Today, I need to.

I'm not broken. I'm not beyond repair. I'm not a mess.

Almost none of us are, really.

I'm just caught in the middle of something that seems overwhelming and difficult and perpetually discouraging. I'm stuck here, for now.

Trying to work it out.

Trying to make sense of it.

Just, trying.

And even in all the resistance, and the frustration, there's something almost beautiful about realizing we will get another chance at all of this. Good and bad.

Because, yes, right now, the future is a faraway concept that doesn't bring much meaningful satisfaction or relief. But, the notion that there is something even larger than the problems and pain we deal with suggests there is a certain generosity to life.

That we aren’t completely alone with it.

That we are being given gifts that sometimes we can't even see.

And, whenever this moment of despair and difficulty and disillusion passes onwards, you might be able to see that the beautiful thing about being in a dark place is it reminds you how long it's been since you were there last.

The time in between is so easy to forget. Because we are always looking for landmarks of the difficult days. Yet, so much life has been lived in between.

So much beauty and experience and connection. It's important to not forget about those. Crucial, even. Because, yeah, they don't leave the same marks on our psyche. But, they matter. Deeply and practically.

They’re a monument to the fact that there are beautiful things both behind us and in front of us.

And they also give us another sort of gift: realizing that whatever we are in right now, isn't forever.

It's just a moment.

Pain feels infinite, but it's not.

Only time is.

The rest of it is finite.

We all live within the boundaries of time.

And hope is a promise of more of it.