Frosty
At instructor training, one of the things we talked about was ‘finding hope.’ I rolled my eyes thinking, “This hope thing, I’ve got it on lock. WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY are we talking about this? Like can we stop?”
We went around the room describing where our hope came from, at which point a smirk slid onto my face and stayed there; until, I started actively listening to where peoples’ hope was coming from.
One person was talking about how she had survived cancer and that made her hopeful, whereas I’m sitting there thinking, well my dog Frosty is kinda hopeful? Maybe? Suddenly, like a pound of bricks I realized I had no hope..
Here I am sitting next to motivational, incredible Lance Armstrong (pre-scandal), and I’m thinking about my dog. What is wrong with me? I can’t be the only one who cringes when they hear the word hope, right? When it came to my turn to announce my hope to the group, I blurted out the first...second thing that came to mind, “I’m hopeful for the future.”
“Hopeful for the future” what does that even mean? Since that awkward introduction to hope, I’ve realized that being hopeful for the future does actually help me. It helps me to understand that things ebb and flow, at times wondrous at times horrible. I’ve also realized that I need to regularly check-in with my hope. Sometimes I struggle with knowing what is hope-worthy, if you will. I mean hoping for one thing can sometimes make me feel alone and helpless, so I hope for multiple things. When the future seems bleak, I refocus on the work that I do, when work does not satisfy me, I hope for my neighbor, and my friends, and my family. Yet, when none of that works, I hope for Frosty. I know it sounds bizarre to say that I hope for my dog, but I truly do.
Solidly, I can say, I’m also hopeful that Claremont will become a violence free community.
At the end of this post, I hope that you too have something to be hopeful for.
Until next time,
