hope, pt. 2

Eleutheria.
For the longest time, I thought that plans would be a good replacement for hope. Plans and projects and other things I'd sink my energy into, because all my life I'd been told that's what you had to do in order to get somewhere. It never really agreed with my temperament, but I always thought I could bring my temperament in check. I just needed to work harder, do more.

Then--well, some shit went down, and at some point as I was trying to deal with it all the idea came to me to just let it all go. I quit my job and told my landlord I'd be leaving, packed up, and left. Then I sat down in my living room and turned all the lights out and lay there on the couch staring at the ceiling.

Usually when I tell this story, this part goes at the end. It's strange putting it at the beginning of something. This is the point where everything turned around, the point where I realized that the only person I needed to make happy was myself. I remember then thinking that for once I didn't need to have grand aspirations. All I needed to do was exist.

And of course this has to go at the end of the story, doesn't it? It's a logical end point: a key change, the promise of happiness in the future. That's how stories work. And I'll take stories over the real world any day.