The Lowest Bar Is Still Worth Reaching
On Hope, Hopelessness, and Staying Here
I think I would like it if my writing about recovery overlapped less with my writing about politics, but here we are.
I’m a survivor of too many things to list here. As I have said before: I’m an expert on hopelessness. That makes me an expert on hope.
The last month has been body blow after body blow. The actions we can take matter, but whatever victories we can manage feel a long way off. The news is a rolling series of cuts—the bleeding never stops. Most of the blood is metaphorical. Mostly. But only, we fear, for now.
In the face of all this, I’ve counseled and practiced self-care. I’ve tapped out and tapped back in. I’ve done small things for others to feed my own soul. I go to twelve-step meetings. I make myself available to people who might be struggling more. I’ve also cried. I’ve felt desperate. I’ve felt as alone as I’ve ever been.
Yet people keep asking me about hope.
“How do I find hope again?” they ask.
“Where does hope come from?”
“What will help me feel hopeful again?”
I don’t have an answer. I don’t know where hope comes from. But I do know this: I have felt utterly hopeless, over and over again. And then at some point, I wasn’t.
I have been on this earth for 52 years and I have never once felt hopeless forever. So let me testify: If you are alive, there is a chance that your hopelessness will dissipate. And it may come back. And then it will dissipate again.
You’ve probably heard: Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Hopelessness is one of those temporary problems. The fear that it will last forever is what pushes people to the edge. It has pushed me. But hopelessness is a feeling like any feeling. And feelings—every single one—are temporary.
For a long time, when the darkness threatened to swallow me, I thought the opposite of wanting to die was a zestful desire to live.
I thought normal people walked around enjoying their lives. That they had plans and goals and dreams they believed in. That they found joy in the prospect of waking up in the morning, sipping coffee at sunrise, optimistic about the hours ahead.
Then, last year, after new therapies finally gave me relief from the darkness, I realized: The opposite of wanting to die is just… being alive. The opposite of hopelessness is not hope—it is knowing that hope will come again.
As I am writing this, I feel like this I’m offering the lowest bar. But I am offering you the gift of having been at that lowest bar and I will keep offering it: My recovery journey arced to a higher place when I realized that I didn’t need to be giddy about the new day, I just had to appreciate that I was there for it.
Not being full of hope. Not being full of purpose. Just being present. Alive for the dawn, alive for the pain, alive for the bad news and the good. Alive for hope when it comes creeping in again.
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Richard Fariña, whose sister-in-law Joan Baez had some good things to say about Hope, had a great book title, Been down so long it all looks like up to me. I also benefited, early on, learning that optimism is based on facts (not a lot of room for optimism these days,) while hope is a question of belief. And belief can take all kinds of forms, in a higher power, or in the transcendent, but also just in better days. Your critical analysis, Ms. AMC, has always helped to give me hope.
Thank you for this. It was much needed as the search for glimmers of hope has been hard to come by. And it’s so true that just getting through can be enough some days. And books and music and cats and dogs and friends and fresh air and sunshine….