When Hope Left Me

I once believed that I would be destined for great things.

I would somehow make myself known, I would somehow find purpose for myself, I would get to feel like I have accomplished something in my life. It was my destiny; I was going to be somebody. No matter what hardship or obstacle blocked my path and held me back, I’d overcome it. Nothing could get in the way of my destiny. Nothing. What a foolish hope, a childish hope.

But it was Hope that kept me going nonetheless. The world around me could crash and crumble, fall apart to nothing but distant memories of happier times, or lingering regrets as I face the aftermath of a wrong doing that wasn’t even my own, and I would keep on going. Things would get better, Hope told me that I could build my world up again, fix every broken piece and rid of every jagged edge that threatened to steal whatever optimism I had left.

And I believed it, because I had written it in my own destiny. I created the outline, it wouldn’t be up to anybody but me; not him and not her because I would never be like them. Maybe I have his eye colour and maybe I have her height, but these jagged edges don’t have to be hereditary; I am not the same, because unlike them I was going to make something of myself. I was going to be more than bad habits and dysfunction, and maybe at the end of the day they wouldn’t feel like they’d have to be merely a jagged edge in the world they tore apart. My destiny was my own, I made the blueprints...

I once believed that, anyway.

Somewhere along the way Hope was taken from me. My world had fallen one too many times and I was finally too tired to piece it back together again. This time the damage was detrimental, and this time I couldn’t even stand on my own two feet long enough to see if I could fix it. I was too busy scrambling, searching for Hope; the one thing I wasn’t supposed to lose, the one thing I never thought I’d lose. It feels like I’m being pulled apart, this way and that way in a desperate attempt to keep my wonderful destiny in view, to hold on to that belief that I am meant for great things.

I was destined for great things.

I was.

Then Hope left me.

I feel like I’ve wasted my time on frail hopes and naive dreams.

Now I can only wonder whether to keep going, to keep treading forward.

Is it worth chasing the very thing that left me behind?

I’ve lost hope. The consequence? A new destiny, one where I don’t get to be somebody after all. All things are out of my control, my path isn’t up to me. Maybe I was really meant to be like them, bad habits and all. I don’t get a say, and neither does he or her, you or them. Seasons change. People die. Things age. And we lose the things we feel we aren’t supposed to. I can’t determine my own destiny, not without Hope, and neither can this person or that person. My world will remain rubble and dust, memories and regret. I will always be taunted by that jagged edge, and that broken piece, and if not those ones, there will be others to take their place.

I guess it was my destiny, after all, to lose Hope.

Maybe I was meant to become nothing more than a jagged edge in somebody else’s world.

I welcome Doubt and Uncertainty with open arms, I let them fill the place that Hope had abandoned. I have no idea what is to come for me. All that remains mine is the faltering memory of when I once believed.

I once believed I would be destined for great things, and I like that memory, I like it fine.