Feeling Hopeless? Try This

An intimate letter from Lauren about getting your hopes up, having your hopes dashed, and letting others hold hope for you. With tips and tools to support you when hope gets heavy.

On February 2, 2023, I lost all hope.

Again.

I remember sitting in my car outside a Trader Joe’s, about to go in, when I got some professional news that shook me to my core and made me wonder if this whole career I’d built was worth it any more.

For so long, writing has been my North Star, the thing I came back to again and again, the light of my life. As I watched my brother die in 2012, I had an out of body experience that felt like the universe unveiling to me the purpose of my life.

It was books. My books. Your books. Our books. So many books.

But a decade later, I still didn’t have a book deal. And that email told me I was probably never going to get one.

I’d gone to publishers three times with three different books and was told – sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly – that my books were too queer to be marketable, and I wasn’t famous enough to take a risk on me.

My agent at the time asked me to write like someone else.

The agent before her had tried to edit my book to the point of losing all its magic.

The agent before that had told me “flip the genders and I can sell this tomorrow.”

Few people have easy publishing journeys. Most are roller coaster rides.

Hope is what keeps you holding on.

On my path to published, there’s been three cancer diagnosis in my family and multiple deaths of loved ones. There’s been countless rewrites and endless edits. There’s been four agents, twenty-nine publishers, and hundreds of rejection letters.

And through it all, I'm expected to keep up the hope.

Usually that's easy for me. I've been in this industry long enough to know that the way to "make it" as a writer is simply to persevere and keep writing.

If this book doesn't work out, write the next one.

Then the next one.

Then the next one.

But at some point, that hope gets heavy. At some point, we all get exhausted.

BECAUSE FAT GIRL is my thirteenth book I’ve written, the third book I've sent to publishers, and the second time I've tried to get this particular book published.

I know this waiting game well. Too well. And it’s exhausting

So, on February 2, 2023, when I got that bad news, I broke. It was all too much. I decided to completely and totally give up hope.

I pride myself in being that boss ass bitch who always perseveres, makes shit happen, and never gives up hope.

I've got vision boards all over my house, a giant white board with my life goals outlined on it, and stickers galore reminding me that I'm worthy of my dreams coming true.

There is a massive post-in note in front of me right now that's titled "Big Deal Energy" and has all my grandest wishes and hopes for this book laid out on it.

I've got altars and intention setting, journaling prompts and meditations all ready.

To give up hope went completely against the identity I was trying to foster of being an optimist.

Usually I love being an optimist.

I've got vision boards all over my house, a giant white board with my life goals outlined on it, and stickers galore reminding me that I'm worthy of my dreams coming true.

There is a massive post-in note in front of me right now that's titled "Big Deal Energy" and has all my grandest wishes and hopes for this book laid out on it.

I've got altars and intention setting, journaling prompts and meditations all ready.

I pride myself in being that boss ass bitch who always perseveres, makes shit happen, and never gives up hope.

But in winter 2023, hope felt too heavy to carry on my own.

I had been longing to wallow in self-pity. I blamed cancer.

It's hard to hold hope when you keep watching young members of your family die.

Ten years ago it was my brother, that year it was my nephew.

When you are drowning in a sea of grief, hope can feel more like a weight than a buoy.

There is such a fine line between helpful optimism and toxic positivity.

I once worked with a woman who would always say "what good can we find in this situation?"

Which is a great question to ask in retrospection when a work event goes wrong and a shit fucking thing to say to a widow who just watched her husband die – both situations in which I heard her say this phrase.

We live in a society that wants people to always be happy and hopeful all the time.

We expect our grief, heartache, and sadness to be contained into perfect boxes, experienced during the 1.5 days we get for bereavement leave from work or reserved for the weekends when we are alone in our home.

We tell people to look on the bright side and keep up the faith when shit things happen.

Sometimes staying positive is actually holding us back from healing.

I kept hope for two full years after my brother died and it led to a full mental breakdown.

I didn't need hope. I needed to grieve.

I didn't need someone to tell me that I would see good in this someday. I needed people to sit with me in the darkness and say "you're right, this fucking sucks."

Last year when I fell apart, a friend offered to “hold hope for me” and I loved that concept so much I had to share it.

This friend – the spectacular journalist, designer, and activist Katie Treggiden – said it so plainly and simply, like holding hope was a normal thing people did for each other.

As the holidays approached, the loss of my nephew became more apparent, my grief amplified. I was just starting to get used to my brother being gone from Christmas morning, and now another place at our table sits empty.

I was lamenting to Katie about how I wanted to stay optimistic throughout the publishing process, but it felt impossible to keep the faith lately.

"I am too exhausted from grieving," I said, "I can't keep holding this weight of hope."

"If you can't hold hope right now, give it to me," Katie said. "I'll carry it."

Instantly, I felt relieved. Like I could breathe again.

I didn't have to give up hope just because grief entered my life. I just had to ask others to hold it for me.

Here's why I love the idea of letting others hold hope for you:

• It acknowledges that life isn't always rainbows and sunshine, and that sometimes staying positive isn't realistic or helpful.

• It allows you to be supported and emotionally held up by your community.

• It makes you feel less alone in the struggle.

• It keeps you from giving up hope completely (which is a rough place to be in, trust me, I know).

• It allows you to be seen in both your current state of sadness and in your ambition to one day move out of it and achieve that hopeful goal again.

After Katie initially told me that she would hold hope for me for my book, I felt lighter than I had in months. So I started reaching out to my closest friends asking them to hold hope for me as well.

"Hey ___. As you know, my book is out to publishers and I've been really optimistic and hoping for the best in the past, but right now, with grief and the holidays, hope feels impossibly heavy to keep up. So, I was wondering if you'd hold it for me."

It's super cheesy, and yet my friends have loved it.

They've asked me to hold their hope for them as well, and I have.

It turns out, it's a lot easier to have hope for others than it is for yourself.

Even on my darkest days, I can hold hope for your dreams.

Even against the toughest odds, I can see you succeeding.

But I can’t always hold hope for myself.

Funny how that works.

Thanks to friends, I regained hope and my book is now coming out in October!

But I wouldn’t have gotten there if I had to stay optimistic all the time.

This book would not be “a poignant, unapologetic, and often laugh-out-loud story that doesn’t fit any neat, traditional boundaries” if not for the depth of human emotions I’ve experienced in my life. (Quote from the head of Entangled describing it in Publisher’s Weekly).

Good stories include highs and lows.

That includes the stories of our lives.

It includes the stories of our publishing journeys.

When you feel like hope is lost, remember that this is just a part of your rich and complex human story.

Remember that a year can make all the difference in the world.

Remember that I’ve got you.

And remember that you don’t have to hold hope on your own.

We're all in this together, and we all deserve communal support when life is tough.

Sending you love and hope and time to feel all the feelings as you navigate this story of life,

Lauren

​P.S. Journaling has been my best tool for getting through both the hopeful and sad days, the ups and downs of publishing and life. If you want to try it for yourself, check out my journaling resources here.