Each Spring it is like this: hopeful. I begin to plan my schedule around Cubs' games. When I was in college, it was Cubs' Opening Day that signaled the end of my appearances in class. No matter what happened the season before by April I truly believe that the Cubs will win the World Series; that this is the year. Most sports fans want their team to win, and cheer for them to win, but every Spring I honestly believe, in my heart of hearts, that the Cubs will finally do it this year. And inevitably they do not. I cannot even tell you the pain and disappointment I feel at the end of the season when hope is gone. And this disappointment is not just with the Cubs, but with myself. I feel foolish and used, for ever believing such a stupid thing, based on no evidence that post-dates 1908.
But even these first couple months of the season when hope still lives, I am not satisfied. I am anxious and nervous. Because with real hope it seems almost beyond the realm of possibility that what you hope for will not happen. In fact, it seems to me, that if you really can fully imagine the opposite of what you hoped for happening, then maybe you need to find another word besides "hope" to describe your feelings. And that is the most sickening thing about hope. It leaves no room for error. It makes no concessions and does not remind you to brace yourself for the possibility of a fall. There are no seat belts in Hope's front seat, and it shows no sense of realism.
It seems a sick game to play really. Anxiety spinning itself into terrible disappointment. Or at very best, anxiety simply being relieved by what you were expecting to happen the entire time. Hope seems like a worse investment than a video slot machine. Though at many points in life that is what it takes to get us out of bed. Even if it is hope in very minor things. And maybe that is the best thing about hope, that we can put our hope in small things, which will not kill us. But eventually hope gets itchy and begs us to place it in something major. And we do. And maybe that is the sickest thing about humanity that we live our lives in such a way. Although, maybe the most hopeful thing about humanity is that we hope and hope and somehow it has not killed us yet.
