a little bit of hope

I'm only 25, now, without the wisdom of 80 years, without even the wisdom of 40 measly ones. I'll wait patiently for these years. The laughter lines, the grey hairs, the loss and realization of so many unknowns.  The extra weight, both around my tummy and butt and in my heart and soul. The lumps and scars and unborn thoughts and ideas and  a child or two. The love, the forgiveness, the trust. The tragedy and thousands and thousands of tears. How is it that we know, we know these things are before us when we are young and yet we cannot know it at all? Cannot plan for it? To even grasp it, to get a real hold on all that life really is... well, it takes some hindsight. and Time. Time doesn't heal all wounds, and cannot erase some damages, but it changes us, and as we look behind our shoulders at our history, it tells a story and shapes what is to come.  

I live in the present but I love to learn from my mistakes, and there are plenty of them to teach me a multitude of lessons. I wish I could learn all the lessons, all at once, so I could avoid any further discrepancy. This is not how living life works. What gives me hope is that I every once in a late night mulling (and inspiration from several episodes of the all Great and Glorious Parenthood), I realize I managed to not do the stupid thing I did in a current situation that I did in a former one. Hallelujah, give me some kind of award, some kind of participation medal in the game of life for learning better behavior. One way life helps you learn from your mistakes is that if you don't run and hide (and even if you do) they'll find a way to find you. You will be confronted with your enemies, you will have to learn how to love them or tolerate them or say a good word about them. You will have the opportunity to be less of a jerk, tomorrow. And if you don't at least try to let yourself learn from your mistakes, the only person that it will not end well with is yourself.

I have hope in people. It's really, really hard to have hope for some people, but hope can be so small, it can really just be tiny. That's all we need, a little bit of it. A little, little bit.  I believe small changes are possible for all people. I believe big changes are possible for some. I believe God does work miracles. I believe love is a miracle.

We have this huge responsibility as human beings to bump into each other all the time and to try to do it well.  And if you have the ability, mentally, physically, soulfully, to do it well, please, please do. I mean, anyone can. But for some of us it's really hard. Almost impossible. And I'm here to say, I'm not playing the blame game. I'm just here to say that if some can't, it sure as hell doesn't revoke your responsibility to love and treat well if you can. It makes your responsibility that much more important. To love without agenda, without pretense, without worrying if you're going to get screwed over this time. 

I have hope in you. A little bit. You can change, you can do right by someone, even though you missed the opportunity to do so yesterday and the day before that. I have to believe it makes a difference. Even though I don't have the foresight to know, something tells me that when we're 80 we would have rather spent a lot of time treating others well whether they deserved it or not. Join me. Let's change the world. a little bit.

"And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’" - Matthew 25:40