Hope Sucks, Let’s do it Differently

Dearest You,

How’s therapy going? Oh, you’re not in therapy? Well, I suggest you hop on that horse and set off into the emotionally-vibrant-terrifyingly-dark-healing sunset ASAP.

I just got out of session with my therapist and I have to share this very important revelation: I think hope sucks. I’m doing it differently, now.

Hope feels like the joy-band-aid of pain. When I say, “I hope things will change” what I really mean is “I hope I’ll feel less pain later and things will be different because if I don’t hope then I will succumb to a pit of despair and everyone will think I’m sad and horrible”. I’m tired of saying I’m hopeful. I’M SAD. And, that’s fine.

Hope feels shitty because hope feels like a nebulous future-thing that implies that the situation I’m in will change. BUT WHAT IF IT DOESN’T CHANGE.

I think I’m done with fairytale hope. I won’t wait for “hopefulness” as if hope is a helium balloon that might passively carry me out of this mess. Instead, I will be OPEN. I want openess. Openess is the door that I actively open for change to come through. I have control over OPEN. I am grounded in reality with OPEN.

So, if you’ve every gaslighted yourself out of reality with “hope”, I give you OPEN - it’s real, it’s active, and it feels both safe and empowering. Maybe you like hope and have a different definition of hope. If so, hang onto to. I think your words and my words are so powerful! And, because hope doesn’t feel empowering, to me, I release it to float way while I stand here in my very real and valid pit of despair processing.

The thing is, I have an interpersonal issue in my life. I have control over me and this other person has control over themselves. I will not hope they change, that feels pointless and painful. Instead, I will be open to them changing/growing and our situation changing/growing as I ground myself in the limits of my, their, and our reality.

I choose openess and reality and truth and realisticness and self-trust.

With Love, From Me

D