Single Again… There Is Always Hope

By Kenneth Stepp

There is always hope… I’ve heard this tired quote so often that the words really mean little to me. I am forever wrestling with the idea that hope is a very bad thing. Think about it. I have never been hurt, disappointed, or confused unless hope was there first. I meet someone amazing, we click, we are drawn to one another, we date… Then something happens. Alone again, “hoping” again. Is hope a good thing?

Hope is what keeps us going, hope motivates us to continue looking for that very special person who will love us back, be beside us through the good and the bad. Hope is why we buy a lottery ticket. Is hope all risk and no reward? Not really. I have so many deep relationships that came from hoping my way through these mean streets of Singleville. Many of those great friends were at one time, a hope.

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

In my world, hope has brought pain, pleasure, and friendship. Not all good, not all bad. But all were important to me and are making me who I will become. Am I becoming this person to be a perfect fit for my beloved? Will I become a man that is enough? Or will I be just good enough for her until a better fit comes along? All valid questions, all enter my confused mind, and now you see why I am confused so often.

Hope is the lightning rod in me that catches the energy that comes into my orbit and tells me if I should look harder or look further. Hope guides me and I know I can’t trust hope. We humans are a funny bunch. I suppose that hope, for me, is like my truck. With fuel, rabbit trails, and restaurants along the way, it uses a lot of resources to get me anywhere, but if I’m going to get to my destination, I have to fire it up.

“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope” – Maya Angelou

The road is dark a lot these days. Time seems short yet less valuable. My logical mind tells me that time is the only thing of any value in this world. But my heart speaks a very different language. My heart doesn’t care about time. My heart seeks only to be loved and love does not bow to time. Time doesn’t affect it at all. They say that the heart wants what the heart wants. I suppose this must be true.

My heart wants something my mind tells me probably doesn’t exist. Why does my heart never give up on finding forever love? Hope… The hope that propels us into the singles arena. The hope that causes us to seem crazy at times, all knowing at other times. Hope is the spark that wakes me every day. It’s a new day and something great is going to happen. Well, then it doesn’t and my mind reminds me that, I told you so.

“A tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure” – Charlie Chaplin

So, what to do about all this ado? My weary mind and my battered heart are at war, will it always be this way? The one thing I am sure of is that my mind brought logic and reason to a gunfight. We all know how that will end… Or do we “hope” we know?