Hi Hope

I saw Gus on Friday afternoon on the bus home. Normally he rides the bus before mine but he had stayed late at the office.

"Didn't you have your lunch today?" I asked him.

"Oh, yeah, we had to reschedule," Gus shrugged. "Something came up for her. But I told her about you. I said I had told you about us."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, and she said, tell Jill we're not dead yet!"

I laughed. "So the saga continues?"

"Me and Kathy? No," Gus shook his head. "We're just..." he trailed off and turned his gaze out the window.

I nodded. I know the "we're just..." story. I know that place well. I don't place hope there, not for fairytale endings. Last week though Gus's story came when I needed to hear it. It did make my day and gave me reason to carry hope.

I came across a headline today though that made me look: Missing Boaters Clung to Thread of Hope. What resonated with me in this story was this one guy's definition of hope:

Even though hope had managed to thread down to a little bitty string, I mean, that little bitty string could be just as strong as the rope you hung on to the first time you got started.

I am forever trying to downplay my hope. When I write emails to people I find I often repeat the word "hope" a lot and I end up spending twice as much time thinking about how to remove some of the redundancy from the message before hitting send. Hope you are doing well, hope you have a good weekend, hope you found those shoes you were looking for. Why is there no other word for hope?

Some days I just don't know. Love shows up when I need love, and in the same way reason to hope comes in like a red balloon when it feels like I can't hold my hope up any more. How do I turn my back on that?