Held Hostage By Hope

I am an estranged parent.

I’m writing anonymously not because I’m ashamed of that fact, but because I still have hope.

Hope for reconciliation. Hope for understanding. Hope that relationships that seem impossibly broken aren’t necessarily broken forever.

And that hope affects how I live.

There are things I want to say but don’t say. Questions I want to ask but can’t. Feelings I struggle to express because somewhere in the back of my mind is always the same thought:

Could this hurt the possibility of reconciliation?

That’s where the name Held Hostage By Hope comes from.

This isn’t a blog about assigning blame or convincing strangers that I’m right. My child has a story too, and I’m sure it doesn’t look exactly like mine.

This is simply my side of an experience that can be extraordinarily difficult to talk about.

I’ll write about grief and anger. Regret and forgiveness. Birthdays and holidays. Memories. The temptation to reach out. The decision not to. The imaginary conversations. The good days when life feels normal again—and the completely ordinary moments when the absence suddenly isn’t ordinary at all.

I’ll also write about my own mistakes.

Because if reconciliation ever comes, I don’t want to arrive there having spent all this time examining everyone but myself.

Mostly, though, this is a place to explore a question I don’t yet know how to answer:

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

How do you accept what is without deciding that it’s what will always be?

How do you move forward without moving on?

How do you keep hope without becoming its hostage?

That’s what I’m trying to figure out.

If you’re an estranged parent, an estranged adult child, or simply someone who loves somebody from a distance, you’re welcome here.

You don’t have to agree with me.

You just have to understand that I’m still figuring this out too.