What Hope Means

In this piece, I define what "hope" means.

Since I’m filled to the brim with new hope, I’ve had to flip through my brain’s Rolodex, searching for the best words to encapsulate its meaning. And I think I’ve found the appropriate words.  Hope is a form of nourishment.   It illuminates the smile. It lightens my step and propels me forward into the embrace of the day.  It detoxifies the air that I breathe. It wipes away the encrusted rust from these bones.  It fortifies my faith.  It is the life raft I cling to when I feel myself slipping beneath the surface.  It insulates my heart from the corrosive influences of an increasingly cold world.

I’ve steeled myself for life’s remaining challenges, some of them having already come into view, a bunch of mountains that are left to climb. One day, all I’ll have to do is round the next corner and they will be there to greet me.  Failing in the face of challenges led to massive amounts of disruption and exhaustion in the past, leaving me with questions and concerns about a proven inability to withstand the capriciousness nature of life. And today, the fear that I’ll fail in the face of the new challenges still lingers.  But I’ve made a vow. When the seemingly insurmountable looms before me, casting its formidable shadow all around, I will not crumble before its presence. If caught in the eye of the greatest of storms, the swirling winds will not be strong enough whisk me away.  Because I must remain rooted in the present, with an eye fixed towards the future, for there are those people whose welfare is dependent upon my resolve.