I don’t do lists and I don’t do retrospectives well, especially in years like this one, with swings from highest to lowest, transitions from white to black and back again. The best I can do at the cusp of a new year is to promise that 2010 holds hope.
I can’t control the job market and I have only a small voice in what Congress decides to do. I certainly can’t control the whims of unexpected health problems in my family (other than to live as healthy a life as possible and encourage them to do the same). I can’t control what Wall Street does, and I can’t control the banks. None of those are things I can control. I can limit how much impact they have on my life; I can do my best to live within the parameters of my means, but I can’t control them.
There’s only one thing I can control: my attitude. Throughout this year, I’ve been looked upon as an apologist, a fangirl, a delusional, misguided, misinformed blind follower, and yes, an Obamamaniac.
I am none of those things. What I am is an optimist, with faith in my own ability to communicate my optimism, to encourage others to find theirs, and out of that, to raise collective voices for hope and for change.
Even when things have been dark, there’s been something to laugh at, friends who make me smile, family who steps into my gaps and gets my back. Despite disease, my son’s talent isn’t diminished and his determination is stronger. Despite disappointment, my daughter fights through her tears and finds other ways to dance, to dream, and to create.
This is hope: Knowledge that with this day, we all have the ability to look for the best and not the worst, to build on the strengths to banish weakness, and ultimately, to join a choir of other overcomers to push forward to a better place where hope resides.
Some readers will say I place my hope in the wrong place. To them, I say this: It’s less important what you hope for than the fact of hope itself. If you hope, you live. If you hope, you act. If you dream, you create.
2009 has been a grim year in many ways, which only magnifies my hope that 2010 will carry with it the prospect of a better result, not just for me, but for all of you.
Whatever 2010 holds, never lose hope.
