Hope Floats
12/19/2005 | 0 comments | Dailies
My favorite kind of movies are romantic comedies. This puzzles me because after almost every romantic comedy I feel a little sad. “I’m not ever going to have that,” I think and feel. I feel it and think it with as much certainty as I can ever hold about anything in this world. How much easier it would be if I didn’t believe that there’s someone out there for everyone but if Carrot Top can get women to go out with him, then surely there is hope for me. Finding someone to go out with isn’t the problem; the real problem is that once having found that person, I no longer trust myself to feel.
It’s not perfection that I dream of and wish for, but just the everyday wonders and it’s those very things that I doubt I will ever possess. “It’s not in you,” I say to myself. Even as I embrace the words, as I feel them sink their teeth into my skin, I know that this isn’t entirely true for there are people I love in my life. Those loves, though, sometimes feel guarded and shallow, causing me to wonder if I really know what it means to love.
How can I be so certain of something I can’t name? “I’m lacking something,” I say to myself seconds before I once again dispute the assertion. It’s an over abundance of many things that is the problem. Fear, distrust; different sides of the same tarnished, battered coin. It’s a fact that people will hurt and disappoint you, just like they’ll fill you with joy and laughter. It’s just a matter of levels and degrees and how much one can handle. I fear I can’t handle much, the crystalline heart I carry in my chest tells me as much.
This is a weakness that shames me, that scares me and angers me. But above all, it depresses me because I don’t know how to cast it aside. It’s one of those things, one of those moments, I think, that can’t be over thought, that demands action and faith, and I am inertia personified.
“Your moment will come,” I say, in encouragement. That I still believe this is a testament to how deeply our ingrained ability to hope flows. Whether or not I’ll be ready to put the fears aside when those moments come is the real question.