Hope is a funny creature. Borne of the past and the future, it can be downright dismissive of the present. True, hope can get us out of bed, but it can also make us resentful of the moment we find ourselves in.
The kind of hope that is a prize dangling at the end of some as-yet unreachable string makes me ache. When it is fuzzy and ill-defined, though, hope can bring me peace.
When I awoke this morning, the practical-minded 50-year-old in me felt the fuzzy kind of hope for Henry the Adoptable Hound, knowing that, wherever he may live, his life will be good. And, in turn, I felt some degree of peace.
When my 16-year-old daughter Allison awoke this morning, though, her young mind saw only the dangling prize, the chance to call Henry ours. She eventually wore me down, and I admitted that I, too, could not take my eyes off that loveable prize.
Like all things, hope has its dark sides. Focus too long on the dangly kind of hope and, inevitably, you face resignation. And fuzzy hope, for all of its well wishes, can lead to a kind of bland naivete that avoids the sharp edges of life.
As in all things, right now I seek some sort of balance between bittersweet memories, the tinge of hope and the contentment of the here and now. I still ache for Hobbes. Yet I ache, too, when I think of Henry.
I'm not sure it's a peaceful ache I'm feeling right now, but I do know that my hope is more complicated than I'd care to admit.
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