i feel like i'm waiting for a boy to call . . .
though at least i am guaranteed a response (which is more than most boys will guarantee; wonder if it'd be possible to make that a requirement of the male part of our species. treat a date like an interview--you have to call me, if only to tell me you never want to see me again. but alas relationships are never that black and white)--
even if the news may not be what i want to hear.
though i wonder if i really want to hear it?

either way it'll be a lot to digest.
i'll either be back at square one, starting the job search all over or i'll be committing my life for the next 4-5 years in new jersey, a state i never intended to end up in. either way--it's kind of scary.
right now i'm just in limbo.
i think i should be freaking out about it more--
but i'm not.
maybe because in this case no news is good news.
because there's still hope. the longer they deliberate, the greater my chances. after all the other person has been around for quite awhile. if they really wanted him/her, they would've already made the decision. so there's still hope.

hope. what a concept i struggle with.
struggle is not even adequate. wrestle. fight. beat to a bloody pulp. kill.
yes. i kill hope. that is such a vivid and true way of describing my relationship with hope.
and yet it is incredibly persistent, like that weed in the garden that keeps coming back. the roots so deep that it would take an earthquake to uproot it. and even then, i wonder. i witness this persistence daily in the vulnerability of my students. growing up in a culture that seems to kill all hope, these children still desire, no, demand, hope. they do not give up. they refuse, despite everything life hands them. they are fighters and fighters for hope. they believe that life can only get better. they'd never articulate it that way but their faces and voices say it every day when they ask me for help with their homework or that problem with that boy or the conflict at home or the fight against loneliness and boredom. they have so much less than i did growing up. yet they are willing to hope so much more. i feel as if i'm learning in reverse. i grew up without hope; without belief in much of anything; with only this sense that life should be different than what i witnessesd, never really believing that it was possible.
thus the battle against hope. i've wanted to hope but i didn't believe that my life could mean anything; that i could have friends--lifelong friends, soul sisters, real community. i didn't believe that i could be anything more than a job; that i could have purpose in how i spend my days. i didn't believe that i would ever find a soulmate; that i would have a family of my own--a home where even strangers felt safe. i didn't believe that i could create.
but that hope--it kept growing back. something deeper than myself. not even the earthquakes of broken abusive relationships and change, knowledge, philosophy, and disbelief, could kill it. beyond my control. beyond my best efforts to drown out this hope. it survived. and now i work with children who, day in and day out, hope against all hope for love and safety and something better than what they have. they hope in a God they've never even heard of; a new creation they've never read about; a love that's only been perverted.
they put me to shame.
so i learn in reverse.
to hope.

Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.