It's rare for me to do something like this anymore. I typically keep my thoughts and feelings off social media. I'm private about my life. In fact, it's been four years since I've penned anything on this blog. 

Maybe I've grown up, maybe inspiration came through different mediums these last four years, or maybe I just needed a break. Today's entry is slightly different; I'm feeling intensely introspective. 

Well, I should've known that I was in for one hell of a year

Let's rewind. Our son was in a hospital bed for over 40 days last year. I know I'm no different from you when I say I’d move heaven, earth, and time to make sure my children have peace, health, and love. Last year was sobering to experience. I had my ups and downs, and the demons that were dormant from my past, were awoken during that experience. I lost my brother a while ago and never quite healed, I guess. That was in April years ago, our son’s hospital stay started in April last year. The reality of seeing my son, my hope for living, writhe in pain, wake up in a hospital bed with IV pumps coursing serums into his body for several weeks was far from fathomable; this couldn't be my reality, could it?

And strangely, it was. Reality can have a cold firm, white knuckle grip on your sanity, and having hope of any kind is a fleeting thought.

What does that have to do with anything, you ask? 

Let’s start here; the last few years have been anything but normal for all of us.  My story above is just one of many examples of what, we as humans, had to overcome. Life hit an inflection point and altered the very comfortable life we all had. Where it's left us is in isolation and alone at times. Experiencing this together, yet apart.  And now our interactions with each other are contrived, forced, and awkward. We go out of our houses and we’re afraid. Afraid of the backlash from someone who might believe something different. Afraid of the anxiety that has people yelling at each other in grocery stores. Afraid of the behaviors of a few people that we then use to generalize all of humanity. Afraid of the anxiety we feel that is so debilitating. 

The very fabric making us human, our connection, is now frayed. Just today my wife shared a story of her journey to a local store to pick up things we needed at home. The drive there was anything but easy. Anxiety from behavior of drivers, stickers on cars, perception of vehicles. In the store, the anxiety from being around others, some in masks, and some not. Would they judge or was she judging them? And then you hurry to line up, don’t talk, pay, and rush back to your car to come home. In the parking lot, more anxiety; traffic, some fast and some slow; homeless, people in a hurry. The weight of the experience was crushing.

And this is another example of how challenging it has been to be human these last two years. The degree of difficulty has been very high for all of us. Yet we don’t talk to each other about it.  We fall back into our caves, our isolation. 

And it's not too late to fix what's broken 

Back to the concept of hope I mentioned at the top of this entry. We must reach deep and find our hope. With hope in our heart, we can return to the kind and compassionate beings we used to be.

Hope comes in many shapes, sizes, and colors. Sometimes it's a song you needed to hear right when you needed to hear it, sometimes it's a game of Uno or Too Many Monkeys, sometimes, it's a nurse that explains the go-forward plan, sometimes it's an Excel spreadsheet that you follow to keep you focused, and sometimes....it's a family member or friend who tells you what you need to hear at the most precise moment. In my instance, it was my seemingly frail son barely the weight of two sandbags, who told me, with absolute purpose and shear resolve, that he’s going to beat this.  That’s hope. Period.

Regardless of what it is, you have to channel it. It’s the electrical ground of your circuitry. We've all been through a lot these last two years. I repeatedly tell my team at work the "hope is not a plan." But I think I'm wrong.

Having hope is a plan. It's a way to bridge the valleys of unknown and uncertainty.  It’s a way to be, and stay, resilient. It’s a way to start to trust each other again. It’s a way to believe that we’ll rediscover each other and the good that’s in our hearts. We aren’t enemies. In fact, we’re more alike than we are different.  Maybe this is just my desperate plea to find the good in things and the good in people.

Take a minute to breathe, I'd tell you to hug someone, but we’re all scare to hug anymore with the risk of being threatening, violating personal spaces, making someone feel uncomfortable, or worse, passing on a disease.  All of this made us afraid to connect.  But when you can, hug a friend, hug a kid, hug a parent, hug your dog, hug your cat, hug your neighbor, but please don't hug a homeless person because they may get too excited and take you back to their tent down by the river.

I'm neither writing this for the attention nor for the sympathy; I'm writing it to flush the negative through this plumbing in a cathartic way. I needed something to put hope back in my heart. 

Then I remember that I'm forever just an emo kid at heart