Hope. (2010)

During the holiday season, as this year wraps up, I have been very reflective. This time last year I was still coming out of a personal "recession" period in my life. I used to have a problem with substance abuse to deal with the trials I was facing in life, as opposed to dealing with them in a natural way. I had moved away from my family and friends, running away from dealing with things; but it ended up being a change that I needed. 

When I moved to Kentucky my family practiced tough love on me. I handed over my inhibitors and re-focused my life on natural things. In other words, I went entirely organic and green, and went artistic. My grandparents had purchased a storage space with all kinds of things in it, some trash, some treasure.

Among these things was a hope chest. This chest looked pretty rough when I first saw it, but it quickly became my pet project. I worked with my grandparents on this when I was going through my first month sober. A lot of times I would wake up and be sanding on this chest of 3 or 4 in the morning because my withdrawal symptoms were so severe that I had to do something.

I got it finished and I painted a floral pattern on it (to be honest, I drew it first and then painted in the lines extremely carefully). It turned out beautiful and I couldn't help but feel extremely attached to it. I saw it as a physical symbol of my sobriety, as well as a beacon of hope that I could overcome obstacles and become beautiful again.

This time, in December of last year, I had incorporated the chest into my house furniture and everyone commented on it when they would come in. I just told them that I had found it in a storage facility and chose it because the greens in it matched my chair that it sat by. I still struggled with depression, but I had stuck through with sobriety.

I met several people who were instrumental in helping me through: celebrating the good times, as well as comforting me during the bad. I decided to move in with a friend and we were moving my furniture when it started raining.

May 1, 2009 two of my best friends were in a wreck while we were helping me move my belongings. They were in a van, which struck a median, and flipped two times. By some miracle, they were both able to walk away with only cuts. They were taken to the hospital and both given a clean bill of health (minus one with a few stitches).

My hope chest was damaged in the wreck, as well as most of my clothing, but it was the memories that I had with the chest that made the impact so hard on me. I was dating someone at the time who had an idea how important it was, and he promised to try to fix it for me with his father.

Within the next two months I had progressed enough that I was strong enough to return home. I was going to continue school and work on my relationship with my family that I had left behind. My clothing had been replaced from the wreck, but my hope chest sat there, still damaged and now gathering dust. My relationship ended, but there were still promises to fix what had been broken.

August 12, 2009 my friend, who had been in the wreck, brought my hope chest to me. It was still broken, as the person mentioned above had never fixed it, but was still together enough to be transported to Illinois from Kentucky.

School started a few weeks later and I had a new job at the Buckle in Carbondale. I had struggled with sobriety, being back home and missing my friends in Kentucky, but for the most part had kept clean. I made new friends, but one in particular stood out to me. He was a coworker, funny sometimes, but always pretty chipper and excited about life and school. His personality rubbed off on me and I enjoyed spending time with him.

We began dating at the end of September, after my birthday, when I had regained sobriety. We struggled in the beginning, as most couples do, with communication, but we have always been able to work through things. He knows more about me than any other person, and it doesn’t scare me. I trust him with my emotions and vulnerabilities, and he doesn’t judge my past.

We were talking about our furniture and I took him out and showed him my hope chest that matched the green char he had already seen. He noticed it was broken and I told him about the wreck, and nothing else was mentioned about it.

A few days later, I was leaving for work and he said he was going to stay behind to work on things at my house. I asked what he had in mind, and he simply replied, “your hope chest.”

People can tell you that they love you all day long. They can write you poems and visit you and give you flowers. But when they step outside their comfort zone, when they fix something that you can’t fix yourself. That’s paying it forward, and that’s love.

Love is hope, and hope is what the birth of Jesus Christ was to bring to all the people. Jesus is what people are missing when they Christmas shop, because maybe it isn’t the hottest toy or the coolest sweater, maybe it’s a few rivets and a little sanding on a chest that a girl worked on with her grandparents at a pivotal time in her life that matters the most.

Thank you, Zach, for sharing the Christmas spirit with me.