Hoping For You
An open letter written to everyone, everywhere.
Hoping For You
Dear You, and You, and You (and You and You and You and…),
If you’re wondering if You are to whom this letter is addressed, you are half right. It is addressed to You. And You.
This letter is addressed to You, and to every other person I have ever known or loved, and to those too I have yet to know, but still already love.
You probably expected this letter to someday arrive. You know me, always writing letters. Always saying and writing words. Always trying, usually failing, trying again.
I want you to know that I do not blame you, though I once tried to. I didn’t know any better, and so I believed that the circumstances of life were made that way by the people, places, and things that made up the community in which I lived, that they were the substrate of the character that I possessed. I hadn’t taken the time to learn who I am. I didn’t yet have the courage. And I found that living that way — trying so hard to be something and someone I never wa s— punctured holes into my soul, though the discovery of such dire condition only came to light after so much damage was already done. I spent so many days only half-alive, so often in extremis, that I could not ever be or do the right thing. I couldn’t say the right things. I couldn’t see or hear or feel what was right and only ever saw and heard and felt the pain of the thing, assimilated that pain into my own, acted bad and took poisons into my body to escape.
I have walked many thousands of miles, searching for aid and succor and trying to heal myself. I have mired in valleys, climbed mountains, soared above clouds. These are not merely poetic devices. I have done these things. I have seen and heard and felt the primacy of these things. My eyes and ears and heart have been opened to the redeeming quality of sweat and perseverance, of solitude. Sweet, exquisite, deeply lonely solitude of soul. The place I was so afraid to go before. Not knowing who I would meet there. Terrified that I would not measure up. Expecting to be harshly judged. Not knowing that it was Me that was waiting for me, that I always did love me unconditionally, and was only waiting for me to catch up. For the marrying of body, mind, spirit: soul. “Something we were withholding made us weak, Until we found out that it was ourselves.” — Robert Frost.
I know I scared you. I know you were scared. I do not blame you that. Fear is natural. A natural response to chaos, to the unknown, to that which is or has become unpredictable. We project onto unknown people, places, and things our best guess as to whom or what it is and whether or not it is to be feared. These projections come as part of the natural evolution of the physiology of the brain we possess, its ability for pattern recognition, and as part of the (usually unconscious) psychological analysis of the totality of our (and others’) previous actions in similar settings. When treading into the unknown, when dealing with others our brain has categorized as dangerous—to be feared—we also have the tendency to project unresolved guilt or shame over our own (and others’) failings in- and onto the unknown, thereby manifesting new failings and new traumas and further discord within the universe. We all do this. Fear is not to be despised, but cowardice is a grave sin. One we are all guilty of.
But I hope the best for you in all things.
I hope for you strength, courage, growth, challenge, rejection, redemption, ascension, love, light.
I hope for you hope. I hope for you faith. Truth. Belief in something.
I hope for you health. I hope for you wealth. A wealth of friendship, of ideas, of time well spent. I hope for you ability and adventure and creation and opportunity.
I hope these things for you mostly, but not solely, because of the children we all share. We once loved each other, You and I, and I have learned that no amount of distrust or violence or spilled blood is enough to snuff out the light cast by seeds planted in love. No matter what hell we may live, no power on Earth—in the Universe—is stronger than that of love. It took us a while to learn this, even longer to believe it, but the finding out did set us free.
And I did not have to share with you what was happening to me back then. I mean, I did have to, the sharing of and subsequent rejection by — being pivotal to the whole plot of the story of my life, being God’s will, but what I mean is: I didn’t have to share with you what was happening to me back then. I didn’t have to tell you all the dreams. I didn’t have to play for you the music in my heart. I shared those things with you because I love you, because I trusted that your love for me was enough to inspire your belief. But I do not blame you your disbelief. Because if I were to put myself in your shoes, I could and would be only able to believe all that you can and will believe, based on your life, your experiences, your memories, your loves and your losses.
But I renounce nothing. Though my own belief, my own faith, oft wavers, has come and gone and grown and shrunk and grown again, my purpose has not.
I do not know why I was chosen for this. I do not know why, or how, I can even believe that I was chosen for this. That part has not been revealed to me, only that it is my anointed destiny to do these things. To become this person. To heal these wounds. To love this world.
Yeah… I still believe I will be President. The absurdity of this notion is not lost on me, I assure you. And though I do also want this, that is not why I will do it. I will do it because it has been willed by a power far greater than me, or you, or any one person on this planet. I do not expect you to believe me. But I do hope you’ll hope for me. Because I will never stop hoping for you.
