Held Hostage By Hope

I am writing this anonymously because I have hope.

That probably sounds backwards.

Hope is supposed to make us brave. It’s supposed to make us believe that something better is possible. But I’ve discovered another side of hope.

Hope can make you afraid.

I am an estranged parent.

There are things I want to say about that. Things I need to say. Things I’ve carried around in my head for a long time without having anywhere to put them.

But whenever I’ve considered writing about them publicly, I’ve stopped myself.

Not because I’m ashamed of being estranged from my child.

Not because I believe my perspective is the only one that matters.

And not because I think I have a story in which I’m completely right and someone else is completely wrong.

I stop myself because of one question:

What if something I say makes reconciliation less likely?

That question has enormous power over me.

Before I say something, I consider it.

Before I write something, I consider it.

Sometimes before I allow myself to feel something, I consider it.

What if?

What if someday the phone rings?

What if someday a message arrives?

What if someday there is an opportunity to sit across from each other and talk?

What if this isn’t permanent?

And what if something I do today makes that tomorrow less likely?

So I wait.

I stay quiet.

I rehearse conversations that may never happen.

I imagine circumstances changing. Time softening things. Anger fading. Understanding replacing certainty.

I leave the door open.

And I’ve begun to realize something.

The fact that I’m afraid of jeopardizing reconciliation means I still believe reconciliation is possible.

That’s hope.

And I’m not sure whether it’s saving me or holding me hostage.

Maybe both.

Because there’s an obvious way to escape all of this.

Give up.

Accept that the relationship is over. Stop wondering whether today is the day. Stop thinking about what I should or shouldn’t say. Stop worrying about whether living my life a certain way might somehow close a door that isn’t currently open anyway.

There would probably be a kind of freedom in that.

But I don’t want it.

That’s the part that’s difficult to explain to someone who hasn’t lived this.

I don’t want to stop hoping.

I want to learn how to live without waiting for my life to begin again.

I want to be able to acknowledge that this hurts without allowing the hurt to define everything else.

I want to tell the truth about my experience without turning that truth into an indictment of someone I love.

And I want to leave room for the possibility that some of the things I believe today may someday look different to me.

That’s why this blog is anonymous.

I’m not here to build a case.

I’m not here to identify my child, settle scores, recruit people to my side, or put private family history on trial before strangers.

I’m here because estrangement creates thoughts that need somewhere to go.

There is grief here.

There is anger.

There is guilt.

There are questions about things I did and things I wish I had done differently.

There are also memories that still make me smile.

There are birthdays.

Holidays.

Songs.

Places.

Stupid jokes.

Ordinary moments when something happens and my first instinct is still to tell someone who is no longer part of my ordinary life.

And underneath all of it, there is hope.

Persistent, unreasonable, beautiful, painful hope.

So I’m going to write about it.

I don’t know where this ends.

Maybe someday I’ll write a post about reconciliation.

Maybe I won’t.

For now, I’m trying to answer a different question:

How do you build a life while still leaving the door open?

I don’t know the answer.

But I think that’s why I’m here.

Welcome to Held Hostage By Hope.