When hope disappeared on me, I knew I couldn’t get it back. It was gone for good and there was nothing to be done about that. At the same time though…
I couldn’t let despair take me. I just couldn’t.
Life is supposed to be binary—hope or despair, one or the other, take your pick. But when hope was utterly gone, when I had nothing left to lose, a new story started, a third way opened up…
The way of fight.
And the death of hope turned into…
A generative death.
How did this happen? I can’t tell you because the sense of fight that showed up in me came on its own. I don’t feel like I had a hand in it. Something in me rooted and muscular, something all elbows and urgency, simply refused to surrender.
I call that something…
The part of me that always loves me enough to fight for me.
And maybe this sounds a little too pat and pretty, like a pep-talk line from a spiritual promotion, but it’s not.
This is…
The hardest-working part of me.
And the gutsiest part.
And the part I count on more than any other.
I grew up in a church community that taught me to hate myself. So it’s been quite a long journey to find this always-part, to own it and develop it, and to put it to work guiding my life.
It’s…
The heart of my defense against despair.
And…
The heart of my post-hope activism.
At this point in my life…
I wouldn’t be me without it.
Reality says…
It’s over for us as a species.
Despair says…
If it’s over for us as a species, then it’s over for me as an individual.
Fight says…
It might be over for my species, but it’s not over for me.
Or for anyone who chooses to fight for themselves.