Tracy O'Neill - The Hopeful

Maybe they did. Maybe they were like me, people, as my father said, whose best wasn’t best. But I can recognize that they, too, were trying. There’s this precipice between endeavor and end, and crossing it requires a glamorous leap of faith that arcs away from just perpetuating life and believing that you make life every day. It’s a leap that says: I am the god of my world. They leapt and fell short. Most of us do.

You used the term “us.” Do you believe you are part of this “us” or do you believe you are god of your world?

I can forgive us all now for being human, but I know also that this is a kindness not to be extended to myself.

And why are you different than them? Are you not also a person who deserves at least forgiveness?

This is not a question of meager requirements, Doctor. My parents came to visit yesterday. My father did something he didn’t need to do: he apologized to me. He said he was sorry he had failed me as a parent.

And how did that make you feel?

That I’d failed as a daughter.

Perhaps no one failed at all.

Of course someone did. It’s why I’m here. But I know now that the failure doesn’t really matter. I don’t need to be forgiven; forgiveness is of the world that acknowledges human limitation. I am the creator of ideals.

To be a god of your beliefs, if not of your world? Is that what you mean?

I believe that believing is the only way to live. Because otherwise, it’s just accidents waiting to happen.

Perhaps you might consider viewing your future with openness not only to accidents but also to success.

But this was exactly what I avoided. You see, I wasn’t trying to die. They found the orange bottles and thought I must have been trying to end the entire life ahead of me or put life itself behind me. They don’t see how I looked to the future, hoping that if I counted once, then I would count again. They don’t know how I imagined windmills and flying over ice, rising and turning and falling with love, skating circles that said to life: again! Again! Again!

Again! Again! Again! You’ve repeated this many times. But do you feel ready to enter a world in which your past may not be reiterated?

I feel ready for a world in which the word “may” abounds. I feel ready for a world that is permissive of dreams. I feel ready for a world in which I will continue to try for hours, even if the way I do that is falling, because I refuse to be a redundancy. And I know that saying this is a risk to the efficacy of my signature. I know that you may decide I am not capable of normative cognition. But I know, too, those twins capability and culpability, and they are my closest family. Would I do what I did again? Unapologetically yes. Over the long distance between life and not losing, between endeavor and end, between love and the frightening numb of mere moderation, I am Alivopro Doyle. I am she who flies with her own wings with the hope of abnormality.

If I sign for your release, it will mean that you have indeed been deemed one of us, normal. If I don’t, it means you’ll not be able to try again. So what, then, is it that you want, Miss Doyle? You want to be the god of your world; I leave you this choice.

Choosing not to choose infinity and choosing to lose: is this what it all comes down to, doc? Them or me? It’s never that simple. I’m one of you, one of us, provisional, yet to be determined — and all this means is that up until the end, I’m just another hopeful.

Thank you for reading this book. Most of the people who made it possible are not me.

I’m talking about the O’Neills with their mighty hearts and tremendous generosity. Mom, Dad, and Andrew, thank you for attending to the insanity as though it were de rien.

Kirby Kim, dear and kind-hearted hustler, no one ferried this book into the world more than you. For your intelligence and patience, the Olympic efforts, and pep talks, I brim with gratitude. Nice doing, coach.

Elizabeth and Robert, I thought I’d never find you. You turned my hope into a real, live book. Appreciation doesn’t suffice.

Finally, the good people at the Center for Fiction, provided me with writing space, editorial help, and some beautiful nights of literature. Thank you for championing fiction, our great love.