'Oooo, what can we do today to make ourselves feel better?!' I lamented to my teenage daughter yesterday morning. I'd flopped on the couch in irritated angst, feeling as dismal inside as the rain looked outside. 'It's grey and cold and wet, I'm bored! I just hate February, don't you!?'

'Well, I know what i'm doing!' she told me brightly. 'I'm going tanning!'

Tanning? I pondered, wondering if she'd found the solution i'm lacking. 'Does it feel good getting a tan?' I asked. I was having visions of bright Caribbean warmth, even if only from a tanning bed.

'I dunno. No.' she replied. 'It doesn't feel like anything.'

'Well, what's so good about it, then? I asked.

'I dunno.' she replied again. And in her 18 year old wisdom added, 'It just...sorta...gives me hope.'

***

Hope... I always find my hope quotient pretty low this time of year. I've packed away my fairytale Christmas trees and what's left of the season is mainly overdue credit card bills and too tight jeans. Somehow in February I don't quite believe my dreams of traveling to castles in Germany or villas in Florence. I entertain myself not with intriguing ideas & plans, but rather monitoring a somewhat horrifying arthritic nub growing on my right pointer finger, confirming my 51 years. And sometimes my 5 kids lives look a whole lot more interesting than mine...

To be honest, I wish i was a more of a glass half full kind of person. I'm not exactly a glass half empty person either - but rather one of those freaks of psychology who can find a fly, a hair, dried milk scum or a tumour, floating in their glass whether it's half full or half empty. Sometimes it's good to drink to the beat of your own drum. (and misuse idioms.)

But seriously, hope is a big deal, and where we look for it is a big deal too. There's alot of things that make a good masquerade of being hope. But in the end are just shapeshifters, promising one kind of transformation, but leading to another. I have some personal favs; good vodka, low interest rates and dangerous men, but none of them held the promise of hope I hoped they might.

Hope is a big business too. Everybody's selling it for the cost of a hardcover, a 3 week seminar or a religious conversion. I know - I've bought all three and still struggle to find hope on a daily basis. I don't know if it's my background, my temperament or my choice, but hope does not come easily to me. But I'm coming to realize more and more that i need hope, and perhaps the only way I'll find it is in learned optimism - and a dedicated hunt for light in the shadows.

***

My husband trudged despondently up the stairs last night, home from the last church board meeting of his 7 year career as chairman.

'Are you depressed?!' I asked a little too cheerily.

'It's all about hope.' he told me, not sounding too hopeful. He's built his hope within the framework of religion and church service.

That's not my kind of hope, in fact I find that kind of hope a bit of a subjective delusion. But each to his own i suppose...

***

A few weeks ago i was driving home in the rain, listening to clip on the radio about a street guy launched into unexpected fame for his radio voice. You may have heard it too. After years on the street, addiction, family sorrows, etc - light broke through for him, he was 'discovered' and became instantly famous. The radio announcers loved telling the tale. A Cinderella story to be sure.

At the same moment, I looked toward the shoulder of the road, and saw another street guy, drenched through, wearing a very likely stolen rubber construction cape. He was pushing a shopping cart brimming with empty pop cans, forging quickly & determinedly through the puddles and gravel, going who knows where. But decidedly going somewhere. Not a Cinderella story. But i saw something almost inexplicable in him. Something oddly of hope, in spite of.

I'm beginning to think finding hope might be a bit less like a fairytale, or a religion - and a bit more like finding a 3 cent return deposit on a pop can...

***

It's not another morning in paradise in my house this morning. I have 9 people staying here right now, two of my three showers have broken down, the heater knob in my car is crazy glued to full blown hot position, I've been sick for 4 days, the dog has a leaky bladder issue that stinks. And it's still pissing rain.

And I have no solutions. And yes, I know it could be worse, but i want it better.

But my daughter just asked me to come to the gym with her and try out the tanning bed. And I think i might go. I'm getting kind of tired of being a professional pessimist and who knows, this might turn out to be today's 3 cent return on my pop can.

Sometimes it's ok to buy the hope you sell yourself.