You Gotta Have Hope

A friend of mine and I were venting about guys earlier (ugh, guys...), which was exactly what I needed after eating ice cream for dinner and binge watching So You Think You Can Dance contemporary routines on YouTube during the NASCAR rain delay. We were talking about how people don't always behave how you would like them to, and how sometimes they let you down whether or not it's their intention to do so. We talked about relationships that came close but never actually were when she said, "It's like meeting a guy on summer vacation... not to get all Grease here..." And I told her it's actually nothing like that because, as we all know, at the end of Grease Danny & Sandy ride off in a flying car to what is surely their own happily ever after. Then she responded, "Well, it's like that if they didn't end up in the same high school together."

And therein lies the problem.

We live in a world of chick flicks, rom-coms, Disney movies and happily ever afters, and reality will never measure up to that fantasy world. Real life isn't all Notting Hill and When Harry Met Sally. Sleepless in Seattle was great, but I can't imagine there are that many couples in the world who found happily ever after when someone fell in love with a voice on the radio. If any chick flick comes close to real life, it's probably Casablanca - the woman from your past walked into your gin joint with another man, and left with him, too. Sorry, guy, sometimes it doesn't work out.

Sometimes life sends someone your way and you suddenly find yourself feeling like you're in a chick flick - you're inspired to make your feelings known and hold out hope that they're reciprocated. But life is less like a chick flick and more like a ridiculous episode of How I Met Your Mother. Sometimes you pour your heart out in a moment of strength you didn't know you had (or several moments, if you're a special kind of crazy) and you don't get the answer you want to hear. Even worse, sometimes you get this:

That's the exact opposite of fun, kids (though I highly recommend that episode, "Hooked," as we've all been on someone's hook at some point and have probably had someone on ours). And as much as that sucks, and as painful as it is to be hung up on someone who may feel the same way but isn't inspired to do anything about it, you have to keep going.

You have to keep trying and hoping and loving people. Even if you suspect a breakup might be in your near future, you have to find that part of you that says it might not be. Even if you realize that none of the people you're meeting online might end up being "the one," you have to keep opening those messages. Even when you suspect the next message you're going to open says, "I want to suck on your titties" (yep, that has happened), you open it anyway because you're really hoping it says, "Jay Cutler is a cat, and I knew that without googling it." You can't give up the hope. Whether you hope that someone comes around or someone walks into your gin joint or that you're still in your relationship this weekend, you have to keep hoping. In the words of Emily Dickinson:

"Hope" is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -