Hope can be a rope that pulls you up when you are down, or it can be the last strand that burns through your skin as you cling to it, only for it to let you go painfully.

On the first Monday of the new year, a pregnancy test sat at the bottom of my desk at work. During lunch, I took the crosstown 23 bus to my go-to store, Harmons, to purchase the two-pack. Not that I needed two; it’s just how they sell them. In my head and heart, conflicting thoughts of hopefulness and reality fight because the…