Holding On to Hope When Everything Feels Heavy

 

**Letters to Humanity**  

**Dear Heart That's Still Holding On,**

I see you.  

Even when you think no one else does.  

The disappointment arrived heavier than you expected this time, didn't it? It settled into your chest like damp winter air—cold, persistent, hard to shake off. Maybe it came in the form of a door that slammed shut after you'd already given it your everything. Or perhaps it was quieter: the slow realization that the dream you carried for so long doesn't look the way you once imagined.  

You told yourself you were done hoping. You really did. You whispered it in the shower, wrote it in the margins of your journal, repeated it like a tired mantra while staring at the ceiling at 3 a.m. "I'm letting go. I'm protecting myself. Enough is enough."

And yet… here you are.  

Still carrying that tiny, stubborn ember. Still glancing toward tomorrow with eyes that refuse to fully close. Still believing—just a little—that something gentle might still find its way to you.

That ember? It's not weakness.  

It's the most honest part of you.  

Disappointment doesn't get to rewrite who you are at your core. It can bruise you, exhaust you, make you question every choice that led you here—but it cannot extinguish the quiet, irrational courage that keeps saying, "Maybe. Maybe still." That voice isn't naive. It's ancient. It's the same quiet force that kept humans walking across deserts, planting seeds in drought-stricken soil, singing lullabies to children during wartime nights.

You are allowed to feel both things at once:  

The ache of what didn't happen  

And the fragile hope that something else still might.

So tonight, when the weight feels unbearable, don't fight the hope. Don't shame it. Simply sit with it. Let it be small. Let it flicker. Let it breathe beside the disappointment instead of trying to outrun it.

You're not foolish for refusing to let the light go out.  

You're human. Beautifully, achingly, stubbornly human.

**Take this with you:**  

The next time disappointment knocks, answer the door. Invite it in. Let it sit across from you. Then turn gently to that little ember and whisper, "We're still here. And that's enough for tonight."

**One small reflection to carry forward:**  

What is one tiny, brave thing your hope is still quietly asking you to believe in—even just for tomorrow?

With all my tenderness,  

A fellow traveler still holding on too