What are your hopes?

​Every month I create a prompt journal, and I rarely ever go in the page order. Today, I went to the very last page of my December Prompt Zine and the prompt is “what are your hopes?”

It wasn’t until I read that question that I realized I haven’t put hope in much lately. I have just been focusing on what is while never really looking beyond the present moment. Lowkey, I’ve taken the phrase “be here now” to an extreme. I realize now, that I don’t allow myself to hope often because it typically causes me to worry and think too much about a future unseen. This is a very recent and new revelation for me. Usually when this happens I take myself to the dictionary to learn the true definition of a word, because my own definition and relationship to the word might be improved with the truth.

Hope: noun
1. A feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.
2. A feeling of trust.
Hope: verb
1. Want something to happen or be the case.
2. To cherish a desire with anticipation.

After sitting with the definition for a few moments I understand that hope in a verb state is what often causes me to worry; because getting “my hopes up” is something I have had to heal and recover from in my past. Why would I want to do that again? Ultimately what I’ve learned from this prompt is that it’s time for me to explore my relationship with hope while allowing myself permission to have faith in dreaming again. 
There is always work to be done…