This morning I was awake thinking. It would have been nice if I was asleep thinking because that would have meant I was dreaming and not pondering the ponderables. I was thinking about experiences, those fleeting ones. The ones that seem like they are going to happen but don't. That high tide of hope and expectation form quite a wave and feels like the best is happening and then...and then. For a time I saw hope as the risk not worth risking. It was best to wait and see and not expect much...and then....and then. I started to miss hope. I started to miss that feeling, that glorious expectation when something seems possible. When hope got near me, I would not notice at first and then, it would grab me and there I was believing in good things, in the possibility of good things. Not so long ago I realized that by immunizing myself against hope I had closed myself off from believing in the possibility of good things. In that instant I saw how keeping hope off my heart's porch was not making the tough stuff in life any less painful or hard. It was instead, robbing me of positive thoughts and positive energy. Regardless of the out come hope offers moments that give a heavy heart a little time to breath and enjoy what might be. What might be...by opening myself up to what might be I began to feel the fear and bitterness that had put me off hope shrink. Hope does not make it all better, but it does mean that I believe that better is possible, that good does happen. Hope...