One Word: Hope

I suppose it’s only fitting that this post finally comes together on my B-day and, per usual late to the party but I was finishing up a few things for school and then my new computer broke (DON’T ASK) and when you live in a three-person household that has only two computers it it difficult to obtain one to work on exclusively.  So I had to wait until my parents got a desktop so I could appropriate a laptop.

So at the beginning of the year one of my blog friends did something that she’s done for a while but I was unaware of it the past few years.  I have not made it a secret that I despise New Year’s resolutions…despise them and I have made it a point to not make any for the past several years.  I seriously don’t see the point.  And I know I’ve said it before but if you want to start something new you can choose any ol’ day and just start.  But Alece has done something…different.  She chooses one word and lives the rest of the year with that one word in mind, last year her word was risk and she attested to how it affected her life throughout the year.  So when the new year started to come into view I thought maybe I should try it out, this whole One Word thingy…

I started thinking of what One Word I could choose but it wasn’t until I was at a New Year’s Eve party with my parents and some of their friends and they have this tradition of writing down their New Year’s resolutions, putting them in a hat and then trying to guess who it belongs to.  Well due to my distaste for resolutions I thought quickly and then Alece’s One Word thing occurred to me and I though what would I choose?

The only word that occurred to me was – Hope.  Given my newly graduated status and the fact that I’m currently living with my parents and am jobless that seemed most appropriate.

Hope for a job that I like and can stand to stay at for the next who-knows how many years.

Hope for a nice place to live.

Hope that I can stay in Colorado for the rest of my life.

Hope for a God-filled life and love.

This works for the next year because I am officially a young professional now, no longer a student and it changes things, looking for a job is different because I know that it is entirely possible that I will be there for a good long while and the same goes for a place to live.  And I tend to be a pessimistic person and see the negative side of things so I thought I’d try something new and focus on having Hope.

We’ll see how it goes…

Alone in the Dark

Alone in the Dark.

The phrase has been bouncing around in my head for weeks.  I saw it on a sign and it just stuck in my head.  It seems especially appropriate right now as I stand on my porch smoking my favorite; Romeo y Julieta.  Alone.  Dark.  A bolt of lightning suddenly lights up the night and for a second it’s almost like daylight.  So it’s not completely dark.  I take another drag and pull my leather jacket close.  It’s starting to get cold but I don’t want to go inside.  Another flash of lightning lights up the world and I can see the shape of the clouds as they roll across the sky.  The storms here are different from what I’m used to, there’s no wind, no rain, just lightning and thunder.  And even though it feels chilly to me I know the temperature is pushing 70, 75 degrees Fahrenheit.  Still, I’ve managed to fall in love with this place.  It has a certain charm, the baked brown earth, the tall cacti, the lizards, spiders, scorpions and birds.  I moved here for school, to get an art degree, the ultimate “what-are-you-going-to-do-with-that?” degree.  The saguaros captured my artist’s heart, the rest of the place took the rest of me captive.  Now I’m here, alone in the dark.  No friends or lovers to speak of, at least not human ones, for the desert has become my lover, the flora and fauna, my friends.  Another serpentine stream of lightning separates the sky for a moment and the thunder growls along after it.  In that instant I can see some of the native inhabitants scurrying for cover in fear of the rain that will never come.  In many ways they are as alone as I am and as much in the dark.  One of my old friends used to joke that she always expected that some day I’d mysteriously disappear and become a wolf or a saguaro or something like that.  I’ve always thought it would be more likely for one of those things to become human because they seem so much more alive than some people I know.  And when I’m out in the middle of the desert I can feel a pulse thrumming through everything, a heartbeat of existence.   There is so much life out here.  I’m amazed by how much is out here and thriving in the seemingly dead desert.  I take another drag.  The lightning brings another flash of daylight and an empty threat of rain.

Alone.  But satisfied.  In the not-quite Dark.