Beware of Falling Shoes (Truth IS Stronger Than Hope)

I see God upon the ceiling
I see angels overhead
And he seems so close
As he reaches out his hand
We are never quite as close
As we are led to understand
(When I Dream of Michelangelo/Counting Crows/Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings)

I relate to these lyrics. So poignant and obvious that God never seems to be as close as we want him to be. Like the way he appears to Adam with fingers barely touching (upon the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel). We could only hope to be so close. So close and yet so far. Just out of reach. Like many, many, many things.

Sometimes he’s closer than you think.

I hold onto hope like a lifeline. It’s different than faith yet similar. Some people lose faith – for
awhile, forever, for good reasons and for poor ones too. We have one life. You want to have faith in it and in the people in your life. Regrettably, faith can be lost. If and when it happens, the best you can do is hold on to hope. They are intertwined. Connected. Never lose both.

I remember hoping to land a certain job and doing so. I remember hoping to keep a job and it slipping away in front of me like sand through your fingers. I kept trying to scoop in up and hold onto it. Contain it. It turned into water...then air. Invisible but somehow giving me something to breathe in and…hope for.

I’d learn new techniques and take new classes. They’d offer me false hope, which is better than no hope at all. I’d throw myself into it and make it my primary focus to the point of obsession – to the point of OCD actually. It still slipped away – just of reach. HOPE would spring it’s beautiful notions to me and rumors would lead me to believe I could be saved. Liars. Judases! And then it all came crashing down. The ones I counted on to save me simply could not. They were not happy about that. I was unhappier than they will ever know. I lost my security blanket. I lost my mega vacation days, sick days, my comfort zone. I was once untouchable. I liked that spot. I miss it.

I had faith that the certain powers that be could protect me from the ugliness - the foreboding bittersweet panic that would ensue. They couldn’t. But they wanted too. That had to mean something to someone besides me. It didn’t. Exceptions for one meant exceptions for all.

You can’t have that. THEY couldn’t have that.

Truth is stronger than hope. I lost again.

I would start over…I would have no choice but to start over.

From scratch.

With nothing.

…and yet it would not be the hardest thing I’ve ever done and I knew I would land on my feet because I had no other option. I told him that later on. It was an ultimate truth that was known and accepted long before I could ever speak it out loud. It was nice to get the opportunity to tell someone who would be a little amazed by it. Baffled.

I would hope to do all of it with grace and dignity. Faith crept in along the way. Faith in myself. Faith in starting over. Faith in landing a job with my own capabilities with no help from anyone.

Maybe I’d be OK.

I could only hope to survive and yet had faith that I would – no matter what - there was no other acceptable option. That was the resounding and annoying advice in my head...there is no other acceptable option." (Key word: acceptable)

I had hoped that someone would see this seeding dandelion as a chance for wishes (come true) and wonders and WOWS instead of a potential for weeds.

I struggle with faith – like many. I’m grateful for friends and people like Ann Lamott who write books and admit their struggles too. Good to know one is not alone in times of strife. Misery loves company, right?

The truth is that loss is a part of life. He couldn’t be saved and neither could I. People lose jobs. People lose lives. Hardly a comparison. She lost the use of her limbs. They lost a child. He lost his freedom. We lost our 4-day work weeks. Wait…that’s hardly a comparison.

Everything after that was nothing. I had hoped for a better outcome. What I got was the truth. What I know is this:

Truth is stronger than hope.

Somehow, we have to be strong enough to handle the truth. Perhaps that is where faith kicks in.

Too many times, I felt like I was at the epicenter – the point directly above the place where things would start to shake and become scary as hell. And I survived that. Losing a job was nothing to me because I had lost so much more already. We have all lost things that meant more to us than a job or… a 4-day workweek.

It was my empirical belief that once one shoe fell the other would surely follow.

I can only hope that enough time passes to make me stronger between the shoe falls…to make us all stronger between shoe falls.
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God, it’s so painful, something that’s so close
And still so far out of reach…
(American Girl/Tom Petty/Remake by Goo Goo Dolls)
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