The Audacity of Hope

I like to clean.

No.

Like, a lot.

I’m very organized. Everything is sorted and filed, color coordinated and labeled. My closet is absurd. My shoes are mostly still in boxes, labels out. Arranged by box size. My clothes color blocked and arranged by length. My drawers perfectly board folded. The toiletries in my bathroom are perfectly aligned in a subtle arc, ordered from tallest to shortest. I clean off my desk everyday before I leave work as best I can.

It is my way.

I’m hardly rigid in this, naturally.

Sometimes I’ll do laundry and they’ll stay in a heap at the foot of my bed until they’re reworn. I can never bring myself to unpack after trips. I refuse to vaccuum everyday so Honey’s long blond hair is all over everything. I’ve reconcilled that dog hair will be a part of my every outfit.

So what draws the line between pleasantly nuerotic (as I believe myself to be) and straight up OCD?

Lines are important, boundaries if you will. I’ve never been one for them. I’ve spent most of my formative years trying to figure out how to bend and fold them or completely obliterate them at my will. As I (unfortunately) settle into real adulthood, I find that while I still prefer to swipe my foot slyly across the proverbial line in the sand, I do respect boundaries more.

A little.

The problem for me has always been that lines are so…well, straight. And I most certainly am not. If boundaries are straight black lines, I’d fancy myself to be colorful ellipses drawn on the edge of the paper.

You know, crazy and shit.

There is one line I think I’ve crossed unknowingly, travelling from my comfortable home state of Hopeful Cynic, directly into the center of town in Cynical right over the bridge.

I always maintained that despite my acerbic wit and my reliance on sarcasm as though it were my life’s breath (cuz it is), that there was some kinda balance. I wasn’t the bitter, broken bitch telling you how all men are dogs. I was simply the person gently as possibly pointing out that maybe an affair with a married man wasn’t the best way to ensure longterm domestic bliss.

Even now, I don’t engage in male bashing or long drawn out bitch sessions with my friends.

I just don’t know if I believe.

For me that is.

I find myself being a champion for my friends’ causes. Of COURSE you should go after that job. We’ll figure out a way to get you out of debt. You’re getting married? (Why?!?) Congrats! If you like him, go after him. Otherwise you’ll always regret it.

For myself? Notsomuch.

When did I cross the line between charmingly self depreciating and just plain ole hopeless?

I think maybe, over the course of the last few years, this is what I mourn with the greatest ferocity. The loss of my ability to hope. To feel the full weight of every connection without it getting to a certain point and me growing numb to it, or worse, doubting it. I don’t hope for the best anymore. I just hope that when it’s all said and done I won’t be too devastated.

And isn’t that the saddest thing? To go into everything waiting for the other shoe to drop? When did my ellipses get so black and white and gray?

I want to believe again. In something. Anything. Anyone. I desire it wholeheartedly.

I just can’t get the closets in my mind clean enough to make room for the possibility. Maybe I’m just not obessive compulsive enough.