Hope

I miss the days of sprinklers and climbing trees. I miss playing in the yard and being excited about all the possibilities in the world. I miss being young and innocent enough that I still saw faeries and infinite possibilities in everything. I miss playing dress up with my sister and putting plays on for the neighborhood. I miss the days when everything was simple. When an ice cold glass of water was enough to make me happy. When I believed in everything. I believed in dreams. I believed in love. I believed in happy endings.

I miss playing foursquare with the neighbors on our long driveway. I miss playing in thunderstorms and the excitement of stomping barefoot in puddles and running from the lightning, (though I never actually ran. I was always too intrigued by the electricity in the air). I miss warm towels, tulips growing in the garden, and rolling down hills for so long that my skin got itchy from the grass. I miss reading a good book by the potbelly fireplace in the winter and out on the swing in the summer. I miss the sizzling sound the stove made when snow hit it as we warmed ourselves from the winter storms.

I miss the hope I had as a child.

Because the older I get, the less hope I have in everything. But I can't help but hold on to a little. I know I'm naive, and I should just give up when reality slaps me in the face, but I can't. I still have that childish hope that everything will work out. But that hope is challenged on a daily bases. It was challenged for five years. It was challenged and taken away from me in November. It was challenged my entire time in LA. And it's being challenged once again, here in NYC.

At what point does hope end and stupidity begin?