Hope and Dread

Hope and dread—two forces pulling at the same thread, unraveling us, remaking us. One whispers of possibility, the other of ruin. They live side by side, tangled in the body, coiling through breath, tightening at the base of the spine.

Dread is the weight in your gut before you step into the unknown. The ghost of everything that’s ever broken you, warning you not to try again. It keeps a record of every rupture, every time the ground has given way beneath you. It sharpens your senses, preparing you for the worst. And yet—hope rises. In the cracks, in the smallest shift of light, in the relentless ache for something more. Hope is not naive; it is not soft. It has survived too much for that. Hope is the refusal to let despair be the final word.

These forces do not cancel each other out. They feed each other. Dread makes hope sharper, more urgent. Hope makes dread bearable, keeps it from swallowing you whole. To feel both is to be alive—to stand at the edge of what was and what could be.

This is the space where transformation begins. Not in the absence of fear, but in its presence. Not when certainty is handed to us, but when we step forward despite its absence. Hope is the risk we take to keep moving. Dread is the shadow that reminds us what’s at stake.

To hold them both is to hold the fullness of what it means to be human. To honor the pain without forfeiting the possibility. To stand in the storm and still believe the sky will clear.

What if, instead of pushing dread away, you let it sharpen your hope? What if you stood in the tension and let it pull you toward something new?