I have noticed the past couple of months that I feel my best when I am living in the space between hope and despair. Now, what the hell does that mean? Well, I tried my best in Episode 20 of Adventures With My Forties to explain myself. And I’ll attempt that again here…

“Despair” is the loss of hope. The feeling that all is lost. Nothing will ever improve. Woe is me! I will always be miserable. When I had postpartum depression, after about three months of progressively feeling worse and worse, I succumbed to despair. I believed that I was broken and no one could ever fix me. I would feel like a zombie for the rest of my life. I wished I could die.

That’s despair.

Hope is the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best. It’s a belief that the future will be better. If you rely on dictionary definitions, hope and despair seem to be opposites.

I think they are actually the same thing.

Yes, despair is pessimistic and hope is optimistic, but they are both a type of mindset that looks to the future. Both despair and hope place contingencies and conditions on our future happiness. Both mindsets take us out of the present moment and place our wellbeing in the future.

Let’s take a look at distance learning through the lens of hope and despair. Pippa has not been to school since mid-March 2020. To date, second grade has happened entirely on the computer. Our school district claims they are ready to start hybrid school in February if the numbers allow. Now, how do I react to that possibility?

From a despair perspective, I would think, Schools are never reopening, not in the foreseeable future, everything is fucked, we will be stuck in this distance learning hell forever.

From a hope perspective, I might think, It could happen! Pippa could have hybrid school in February! That would be amazing! I would be so happy if that happens!

From both perspectives, hope and despair, I’m living for the future and deciding, I will be happy or I will be totally fucked depending on whether Pippa gets to start hybrid school in February.

But what if I live in the space between hope and despair?

From that space, I learn that our school district is preparing for hybrid learning in February, and I think, It would be nice if Pippa could go to school in person, but we have everything we need to be happy right now. We’ll be fine if hybrid does not happen.

This is the crucial part of the space between hope and despair: we have everything we need to be happy right now.

We have everything we need.

Right now.

When I manage to live in the place between hope and despair, I feel like my best most authentic self. I live in the present moment and sure, I acknowledge the difficulties of the present, but I also see the blessings and magic.

When I live in the space between hope and despair, I do not place contingencies and contingencies on my future happiness because I am already happy.

If I am living with hope, that means I have said, If X happens, then I’ll be happy. That means I can’t be happy until X happens, which means I am not happy now.

If I am living with despair, then I think, X will never happen, so I’ll never be happy. That means I’ve already decided I’m miserable.

Hope might seem more optimistic than despair, but with both hope and despair, I’ve already decided that I’m not happy. I’ve rejected the present moment. I’ve rejected my present happiness.

I am trying my best these days to live in the space between hope and despair, but I’ll tell you, it’s not easy. Not with the pandemic and distance learning. It is so easy for me to get lost in thinking about the end of distance learning and the pandemic and the return of “normal” life. That happened to me last week on my birthday! I was grumpy AF and had most definitely placed conditions on my happiness. I kept thinking that I couldn’t have a good birthday unless I could go to a nice restaurant with Nathan, send my kids to school, get a massage, and celebrate in person with loved ones. I thought hopefully to my next birthday – but that made me feel worse about the birthday I was having. Then I flipped over to despair. When I go to hope, it’s so easy to slip into despair. And when I’m in despair, it’s so easy to rely on hope to get out of that darkness. – which sends me tumbling back into despair. It’s a vicious cycle!

But in the space between hope and despair, I shake away contingencies and conditions and embrace the present moment with all its imperfections. That’s where I want to live. It’s not easy. But I’m trying my damnedest to live in the space between hope and despair.