Hope

Hope is an interesting thing. I am thinking about it because I think I am losing it. When I was younger I used to hope for a bright future. At different times I hoped for different things. I remember a time that I hoped to be a best selling author who lived alone in Park City and had a bare skin rug. Later I hoped for a happy marriage. That hope came true. I hoped for a certain life, with my wonderful husband, some kids, a house.... You know the usual stuff. Lately I have been thinking, so what do I hope for. I hope for a visa that will take us home. I hope that my husband will be present at the birth of his next child. I hope that Eva will someday sleep through the night, like she used to before we moved to Mexico. I hope that Justino's cousin will come from Florida and bring us Eva's crib to increase the chances of her sleeping through the night, because I have determined that she is too big for her porta-crib, that coupled with the bugs that eat her while she sleeps, are the reasons that she wakes up five times a night, and barely naps in the day. I hope that if we ever get back to the states, that we will be able to build a life there, and it won't matter that we are light years behind other people our age. Who all have houses, and careers and lots of children, and all the other things I used to hope for.

Why suddenly am I doubtful that any of this going to happen. I believe that it is all possible. I don't think they are such outrageous things that I hope for, but in a new way, like never before in my life, I wonder if they will happen. I worry that they wont. I don't know what that says about me. I guess I just grew up believing that I could have anything I was willing to work for. For the first time I don't feel like there is anything I can do to make my hopes come true. Maybe pray. But hasn't God already decided if we are going to stay here or not. We ask him unceasingly to send us back to the states, and to send us a job until we get there, but he hasn't done either one yet. I feel so powerless over the future that I always hoped for. SO maybe I am discovering as I write this that my hope was in the wrong thing, my ability to achieve what I want to have in my life.

Oh the things I am learning being in a place I didn't hope to come to. It isn't really being here that is hard. I mean tonight they closed the street, and the music was huge and beautiful and the weather was warm, and the neighbor had hung balloon across the street. And there was dancing and candy for the kids and festive Mexican "ponche" ( a hot drink, lots of fruit boiled with cinnamon sticks and sugar) that I love, and in the middle of it, I thought, what is my problem. I love this country. I do love this country. I wouldn't mind living in a part of it that had at least one Chinese restaurant and a book store or two, but I love this people. I love this culture, I love that my daughters first words have been Spanish words. I love so much of this life that we live here.

So what I am complaining about? I don't even know. I just know that I hope differently than I used to. I guess I used to hope for things and I hadn't lived anything that made me think that it might not come true. Suddenly that seems like a possibility. That scares me. What do you hope for?