I have always loved people’s stories. Even the sad ones. The ones that feel so hopeless. I love to listen to them talk about their lives. I’m not afraid of the suffering, of the doubts, of the anger. I want to hear it all, in it’s raw honesty. I am also always looking for a glimmer of hope, for I have realized that I am a hope-seeker. I don’t want to pander to trite nothings or try to put a positive spin on it. I want to find real hope, and pull it out and hang it up for all to see. I want to see both the suffering and the hope for the future, not denying either one.

I think often we end up in a place where we want an all or nothing concept. We want to be all sad and mad, seeing only our pain and finding no hope at all. Or we want everything to be roses and champagne, with no hurt following us around as we dance through meadows without a care in the world. I don’t think either is true to life as a human. We hold both all the time. We tend to feel hypocritical, though, when we allow both. It’s like finding yourself laughing at a funeral—it’s not wrong or even disrespectful. Instead, it shows that you can hold many emotions at the same time, valuing all of them equally. We don’t need to put down one in favor of another.