what is it about hope?

The thing about movies is, they encourage you to have hope. I mean relationship hope, especially. It’s unbearable. I saw (500) Days of Summer, today. I liked it a lot, mostly because the main character, Tom, spoke of how even greeting cards give us an easy out from actually expressing our individual and intimate feelings. I feel that way towards movies. I know they’re not all sap, but tonight as I was watching Sense & Sensibility, it bothered me how cool and collected Eleanor seemed about Edward being away, but how when she was away from her mother and sisters, she pulled out the book he gave to her and you just knew that she was hoping that he would return to her and confess his love. Later, he did come to visit and her younger sisters attempted to slyly give Edward a seat on the sofa next to Eleanor. However, Edward intentionally seeks out other seating and you can see the devastated looks on the faces of all three sisters.

And in (500) Days of Summer, Tom did the same with Summer. When they were later reunited at a wedding, they danced together and had good conversation. And once again, you just knew that Tom was hoping that she would want to be with him again.

There was even a part where they did a split screen. On the left, the bottom of the screen was labeled “Expectation” and on the right, “Reality.”

Isn’t that what so much of our lives are? Yes, we will always have expectation, or really, hope. Someone said that to be last week. That there will always be expectation. But at what point do you cut it off? Because even if hope “pulls through” – how much aligns with what you anticipated? Something will always be different, whether it is greater than you could ever expect, or a huge disappointment. Because, overall, I know for sure that there comes a point where you have waved your goodbyes to certain things, whether they be ideas, people, etc. and somehow the expectation, the hope, is gone.

Lately, as my mind has wandered, I mentally beat myself up, reigning myself back into the present. It’s painful at times but the thing is, there are some dreams that are meant to come to fruition but also, a good many that need to be buried. I don’t ever mean to come across as bitter. I think it’s just attempting to better categorize the chaos of my mind. I want to keep my mind so focused on hoping for what I know without a doubt is good and true, but focusing at all is a challenge and I’m continually having to redirect my mind and separate the natural deceit of my heart from what is without a doubt true. It’s frustrating to actually see how slow my progress is.

So what it is about hope? Are we, am I, just naive? If we really saw ourselves for what we are; if we really saw situations in their truest light; if we really communicated well; would this make our lives more black&white and eliminate more grey areas? I like the idea of hope, but honestly, it usually just mentally stresses me out when I actually participate.



“color my life with the chaos of trouble.”
Summer’s favorite quote, per Belle & Sebastian in (500) Days of Summer

“And secretly I want to bury in the yard
The grey remains of a friendship scarred” –the shins.