The Embers of Hope

I remember working a standard cashier job while I was in my late twenties and a vision of my future came to me between the scanner beeps and impatient sighs of customers. If I stayed on the path I was on I would become disheartened and hollow; just a husk of a person whose dreams were crushed long ago. I see those people all the time working checkouts and sales jobs; they put a smile on, but you can’t help notice that their soul was run over by the dream crusher truck.

There’s another group that goes to bed at night happy with what they have, but only because they fooled themselves that it was all they ever wanted. Perhaps there were once just like me; full of potential and doubt. With every beep of the scanner, their heart broke a little more until the only way they could preserve the last little bit of their spirit was to trick themselves into being overjoyed with that simple little beep; much like a captive falling in love with their captor (Stockholm Syndrome).

What stopped them from becoming something? What is it that stops me now? Is it that I do not dream big enough or want better things? Is it that I don’t believe in myself enough? Are there simply too many options to choose from, and too little direction?

I’d like to think of myself as strong, and domineering yet I have no right to think of myself that way. None of the things I have accomplished in my life seem to be accepted as proof of self-worth. I don’t have the car, house, dog, kids, husband, or hoards of treasure that our society uses to measure a person. I’m sure the absence of these things could be attributed to a lack of motivation, but maybe it is that I have already lost hope. Perhaps it left in the middle of the night without my knowledge like a disheartened lover. It was once so bright; burning like an ember that illuminates the promise of a new fire.

Hope may be nearer to fire; if you don’t feed it with new accomplishments, and dreams it will die leaving the rooms of your soul to grow cold. On the other hand, perhaps the embers of hope are that voice screaming at you in the middle of the night that this life is not enough. Perhaps hope is that frustration that leads you to wander around strange streets at odd hours wondering if what you’ve been looking for all of your life is simply around the next dark corner. I found myself advising a friend once that hope is the one thing that no one can ever take away from you, but you.

Currently, I am over seven hundred miles from the place where I was born, and I find myself only now fully understanding the wisdom in my own words. This is a trial by fire. The embers of my own hope have grown into a flame and swallowed me up.