“A cynic is a romantic who is too scared to hope”

A quote by Emily Henry in Funny Story

I nearly tripped on the sidewalk when I listened to this line on my walk the other day. I then stopped the audiobook and stood in the middle of the sidewalk for a moment having this “ah ha” moment but translating outwardly to a laugh out loud at the realistic statement that I did not realize I would resonate with.

The timing of this is impeccable. I was walking around my neighborhood to try and get my mind off of the fact that I accidentally ended 5-months of dating someone. Yes, accident you heard that right, because I didn’t expect to leave the conversation having to go our separate ways. Well… separate unless I decide to text them and say I’m all in and then the case would be reopened and considered but no guarantee of a unanimous vote.

In light of our conversation when “breaking up” and the revelations I have learned about myself, hearing this statement was a new truth that intertwined and unexpectedly bounded before me. From this perspective, I am a cynic who is a romantic who is too scared to hope.

But let's break this down.

A cynic: a person who believes that people are motivated purely by self-interest rather than acting for honorable or unselfish reasons. — Oxford Dictionary

A cynic distrusts people. A non-believer in good intentions. A truther in individual motivations lying in the guise of the Bible’s 7 sins. Who will protest that people are always up to no good.

A romantic: a person who thinks a lot about love and does and says things that show strong feelings of love for someone. — Britannica

A romantic….a romantic in my eyes wears their heart on their sleeve. Who loves love and loves to express it, and to give it, perhaps more than to receive it. Who displays their affection outwardly between a spectrum of love languages towards the other. They love people and the feeling of what can come out of loving someone.

I would like to wish that I was a romantic. I almost envy those people who are. They’re optimistic. They live without fear of what unknowns lie next, of how hurt they can be by the outcomes. How daring that is isn’t it?

I love adrenaline, I love thrill, and I am one for spontaneity but when it comes to love and people?

It would make me a cynic.

It’s right there in the sentence: A cynic is a romantic who is too scared to hope.

They have the capability, the want, the desire, the longing to express love in all of its stages. To be naked in vulnerability. To let go of the guardrails they hold with a white-knuckled grip.

But it is that hope. The hope is that it will be received. The hope that it ends well. The hope is that they can stay afloat, whatever the outcome. The hope is that their intentions are not misguided, and can let go of the safety, without tension, and into the arms of someone who is undoubtedly unselfish and wound tight with the security of trust.

I have more blind faith in God, a power that I cannot see, than the hope I have with people anymore.

That doesn’t mean I’m void of romanticism, but it is locked away. Perhaps it is not ready, because of its past trauma or the unpredictable future, but I do know it is afraid.

It will have its moments in between the breaths of passioned dances. It will cry out: screaming, begging, pleading into the galaxy of these brown eyes. And they will ask: “What is it? What is on your mind?” But it is mute, for it cannot reach my lips. It lodges in my throat. Too scared to mouth the word hope.

PS: You should read Funny Story by Emily Henry! My favorite of her books so far :)