Hello Stranger

by Katherine Center

Because that was the most essential thing about my mom. She couldn’t always fix things for me, but she was always there. Until the day she wasn’t.

“Why? It’s not your fault.” “Trust me. Having your brain malfunction is humiliating.”

“I wanted to burn it in a gasoline-fueled bonfire, but that’s against city regulations. Apparently.”

“You checked with the city before torching your ex-wife’s furniture?” He nodded. “It’s all on the municipal website.” Then he tilted his head like he was noticing my point. “I’m very law-abiding.”

That’s the dark underbelly of hope that nobody ever talks about. How it can skew your perspective. How it can keep you in long past when any reasonable person would’ve been out.

A lifetime of movies with underdog champions had primed me to expect that I’d find a way to triumph just in the nick of time.

Was there some rule somewhere that the dream you picked for yourself in college had to be the dream you kept forever?

once read that people who hurt others think there are only two choices in the world—to hurt or to be hurt. And so they hurt others so they can feel safe. Like, if they’re the bully, they can’t be bullied. If they’re the victimizer, they can’t be the victim. As if anything in life could ever be that simple.

The more good things you look for, the more you find.

love is a form of hope.