Adulthood

You could cry or die 

or just make pies all day

I'm making pies

-Patty Griffin

Adulthood either looms like a fearful, black wave about to break on shore, or seems to be the dark water I already tread.  With leaky water wings.  Without a snorkel. 

Today, it waits in the distance and is indeed bleak, a storm of human disappointment. 

And what is the proper response to the reality of failure? And what is reality anyway?  Is it most realistic to expect that in the end everything will disappoint?  The word disillusionment is often attached to the experience of let down; what is the illusion-- trust in goodness? 

What I want to know, I suppose, is whether adulthood is a synonym for disillusionment, and disillusion a synonym for realism, and realism the only honest way to live.  

But for one who is called to be rooted in the Resurrection, is it permissible to consider hope an illusion, and failure ultimate?  Or, does the Resurrection point its broken believers to a deeper reality that in death there is, nonetheless, life? 

Is hope a choice? 

That is a lot of question marks for a short burst of writing.