Silver Lining

In my mind, I think of hopelessness as an island in the middle of the enormous blue sea. I don't think I've ever been so close to it's shores as I have been lately. So close, that it scares me to my deepest core and perhaps why I write this. There are so many of us out there in that vast blue sea, sort of bobbling in the water wondering in which way the current will pull us. Sometimes you just don't know and can't be truly certain.
I could go on using island and sea metaphors but I won't. You get the idea.

I could have also gone on about writing this in the third person but the trail of clues would transparently have lead to me, I am afraid. We all smile and laugh and live. Minute by minute, day by day. As you get older you realize that's the only way to live life. Measured in moments because as age also teaches you, things change rapidly and in the change of a breath.

Hopelessness in my personal definition is when hope begins to cease in all it's facets and dreams start to slowly die. Instead of striving for a sunny day...we mock it's knocking at the door. We are all but certain that looming black clouds are immediately behind it to rain on our parade.
Hopelessness is insidious. You don't often realize it's there until one day you're smiling in the mirror and it's there behind you reminding you to 'wipe that smile away'......the clouds are coming.

You're no longer wondering where the tide will take you because you already know. Positive is only a reminder that negative is not far behind. So you prepare, and there she is. Dressed in black and with a shot gun in hand.

Hopelessness is when you no longer believe in silver linings and you stop looking for them.
It's when life knocks the wind out of you with a sucker punch and you don't get back up.


You've honestly got two brutal choices. Stay in the purgatory you're in and die slowly.....

or dive back into the vast, uncertain waters and hope that when you emerge for air...

the silver lining high in the sky blinds you.





CJ Ellis