Hope

Last year after my transformative experience, I gave up hope. Stay with me on this one. I didn't specifically give up hope on one thing in particular, just on hope the concept in particular. See here was my thinking on it.

Hopes and goals are different. When you hope for something you have a belief or a desire for things to end in a certain way, or to get to a certain point. Sometimes you have things you can do to help get to that point - but for the most part hope is like a wish; there is nothing that can tangibly be done. The thing is either going to happen - or it isn't. Goals, on the other hand, have tangible steps you can take to reach. If you fail to reach your goal - you can usually pinpoint where you went wrong, with hope - sometimes it's not up to you at all.

So if hope isn't up to you, why do we place so much emotional stock in it? We let ourselves get caught up in thinking and planning on these hopes coming to be. When really, the outcome can simply be a matter of fate, or simply someone else's choice. So I chose to simply not have hope. It sounds sad, but it was actually very liberating. With nearly everything in my life I am able to accept it as it is, and not be completely devastated, because I had no preconceived notions about how I wanted things to turn out. I was still an emotional person, and I still had reactions. But it wasn't the loss of a dream, or the failure to have my 'wish' come true.

Notice I said nearly every aspect of my life...there is one thing that hope still resides in, and I keep letting myself feel it, and it keeps crushing me every single time with ever increasing weight. And that is Craftymama. She's my person. When we broke up last year, god yes I was ruined. For a long time. But I got past that initial desperation grief, and then I realized that I still knew that we would end up together. I knew we weren't over. With every fibre of my being I just knew it, and it was okay if everyone said she was wrong, and it was okay that she didn't even know it yet - but I knew it. It was peaceful in a way.

So then the tea leaf reading happened - and it only confirmed my knowledge. And she had told me she still loved me, and that's when it hit: hope. I kind of got excited. Excited at the knowledge that this thing that I knew was actually right, and that I would be with her again, and the world would be balanced again. And then she picked PolyK. And I lost hope - and it was devastating. But inside I still knew. It was us. Then a few times she was planning on ending things with PolyK and ended up staying. Then we had that Friday night with kissing, and talking, and with tears in my eyes I asked her if this was just for that one night. And she said no. And god I was hopeful.  Stupidly hopeful. And then she ended things with PolyK. I wasn't happy, I never thought she would come running to me, never wanted that. I didn't want to be a rebound. I listened and heard and helped her through her grief as much as I possibly could. Not because I want to be in a relationship with her, but because I want to be there to help her when she falls, I care about her and her happiness and don't want to see her hurting.

Today she tells me she wants to try to work things out and get back together with PolyK. Her heart wants PolyK.

She causes me to have hope. And I lost all hope today, and today the depth of that loss is crushing. Maybe it was hope all along, and not me knowing, and maybe that's what I'm afraid of here. I know I have to let go of that space in my heart that's reserved for her. I don't want to be with someone that doesn't choose me. I want her to be happy, and I so hope she makes things work with PolyK and she is happy. I am happy to have loved her like I do. I will always love her in some ways, but it's the way I do now that I need to set free.

So now I begin a process, and I have no idea what that process looks like. Today is just about accepting reality, being heart broken, and probably copious amounts of alcohol.