I have launched myself headlong into the hope interval. As always, the cynic in me is now at war with the romantic.

There’s this moment we all know.

It’s the period between buying a lottery ticket and the drawing. It’s the period between submitting a story to a journal and hearing back. It’s the period between applying for a job and getting word on whether they want to interview you. It’s the period between saying I love you and the response.

It’s the time between sending your hopes and dreams out into the world and the moment they return. We’d like them to be met with love and gratitude and a desire for closer kinship. But we know the world doesn’t love every idea it meets.

Perhaps these returning hopes and dreams arrive with good news. All too often, not.

I imagine that what I’ll call, for the moment, the “hope interval” is different for everyone. For the naturally optimistic, for those who have come to expect favor from life, the hope interval is probably a smiling, buoyant moment full of anticipation.

For those of us less accustomed to happy news, this period may actually be more about dread than hope. We aren’t awaiting rainbows and unicorns, we’re resigned to the imminent arrival of … reality?

This afternoon I have launched myself headlong into the hope interval. As always, the cynic in me is now at war with the romantic.

Is the hope interval, for you, an interlude defined by joy or stress?

And does the answer to that question also tell us whether or not you’re fundamentally happy in life?