This is Day 7 of the Positive 100, a countdown to Rare Disease Day 2014 and an exercise in being positive despite it all.

Hope is the reason for this site. The reason I fight. I have to hope that things are going to get better. That tomorrow is going to be a better day than today.

Because the tears I choked back this afternoon when I could feel the pain flaring in my leg cannot be the reality that I face every day. I can’t think about how much it hurts or how I couldn’t sleep. I can’t sit and pray that my friends don’t notice that I look like hell. Or avoid them because I know they will.

Hope.

I write about it often. (I even posted a poster design with a proverb about hope earlier this week). I think about my reality and I hope that there is something better coming. I don’t live in a dream world, or expect a fairy to sprinkle me with dust. I know that I can’t wish away the pain. Or wish away the way it dictates some of my days.

But I can hope.

I can keep going because science is moving forward. Because the sun doesn’t fail to rise in the morning. Because each day I know more about my pain. Because I will not give up. And I know that dragons can be beaten.

I am a partial cyborg, and that gives me back some of my days. Not wearing real pants give me back others. Hope for better days will always bring me back, even on the worst of days.

This whole project is to show others that they can hope too. Share what gives you hope today on Twitter & Instagram with the #100positiveposts hashtag.