When All Our Cups Are Empty

refilling when the well has run dry

My empty cup (before I filled it with coffee this morning) and my floor mat by amazing textile artist Trish Anderson.

I am exhausted. Right now. Yesterday. I will be exhausted tomorrow. I used to be exhausted sometimes, when I had overdone it. Nowadays, I am exhausted–physically, psychically, emotionally, spiritually–all the time. I know for sure that I am not alone. 

I write to you from my couch. My laptop is on my lapdesk on my lap. I have been working–on one thing or another–all day. I have barely stopped, and it doesn’t seem to matter. Clean clothes are piled on my bed waiting to be put away. Dishes are stacked in the sink. I will get to them when I get to them. Because the tasks are spilling over. 

I will not feel bad about not keeping up with housework when we are in an ongoing pandemic with zero protections in place and witnessing and funding a live-streamed genocide. I will not worry myself about dirt when the lives of trans and nonbinary kids and adults’ are in danger and when frozen embryos are given more rights and consideration than adult people with uteruses. 

I just had some bloodwork done. It came back with zero alarm bells. 

What’s happening right now is the gradual accumulation of all the anxiety, fear, hardship, and grief of the last four years. I am the dishes piled in my sink. I am the mountain of laundry on my bed. And socks and sweaters and dresses and pants keep getting piled on. I am a growing mountain of responsibilities I cannot possibly complete, worries I cannot possibly assuage, and fears for the future–for me personally, for us collectively–that cannot be easily quelled. How is it that in growing so big I feel so small? 

The advice is that we can’t pour from an empty cup. Okay, yes. But what if all our cups are empty? What if our pitchers are empty? What if the faucets are not flowing? What if the well itself is dry? 

I’m not here to be a messenger of doom. Doom is here. I’m trying to figure out how to live inside it. 

I saw a headline for an article the other day that I did not have time to read. The article was about how we don’t “hang out” anymore and our lives are worse for it. This resonated.

I remember the times when I used to just go over to friends' houses or have them come to mine. There was room. Room in our days and our homes and our minds. Now, there is no room. It’s not that I want to watch tv most nights, but but the energy required to do something, much less do something outside in the world cannot be summoned. I’m all out. 

For the throng of us that are still taking Covid-19 seriously and actively trying not to get reinfected or infect loved ones, the idea of inviting friends (who may or may not have been exposed) over feels layered (This feels particularly true with the CDC advisement to only isolate one day even when testing positive—even though the science has not changed). If we go out, we have to decide whether we are going to mask or not and if we are ready to be the only person masked in a roomful of people. Our government and so-called public health institutions have decided that Covid-19 is an inevitability to be accepted rather than a serious disease with terrifying long-term consequences that we should protect ourselves and others from. And Covid-19 safety, while shouted in certain circles, is hardly ever mentioned in mainstream discussions about community care and disability justice anymore. 

The drain of these decisions. The drain of watching others endure terrible suffering and death. The drain of late-stage capitalism–which shows us advertisements for sequined dresses next to images of babies who have starved to death. The drain of not getting enough quality time with anyone we love. The drain of not being able to ask for help because everyone is maxed out. 

We were saturated years ago. We are spilling over.

We will not self-help ourselves out of this exhaustion. We have to dramatically rethink what it looks like to be alive right now, and we have to support one another in doing it. We have to center community care and recognize we only heal together. 

I saw a meme recently that talked about how we live in a world with Northern lights and bioluminescence, but what we have chosen is paper currency and 40-hour workweeks (if we’re generous). What is the point of it? 

What is the point unless we actively resist the forces that tell us we must sacrifice ourselves for a life where we have so little connection to meaning? 

It is reasonable and justified to be depressed now. So many people are on some sort of mood medication. That’s not because of individuals being dysfunctional. It’s because our culture is. 

I used to be one of the someones who said that we can’t possibly think about our own wellbeing when people are hurting everywhere. That gave me clinical depression. I know now that I have to have to pay attention to when I’m depleted and prioritize the things that do nourish me. This isn’t merely self-care. This is a kind of connecting inward and outward that reminds me of what is possible and what I want for every human being.

I made a list. 

Conversations with friends. Singing and playing guitar. Visits to art museum. Walks in the park, especially to see hundreds-of-years-old oak trees. Time by the lake or the river. Sitting in meditation. Reading for pleasure. Picking out what to wear or doing makeup in vibrant colors. Writing letters to friends or sending care packages. Being in community: at an event or even in daily encounters sharing space with strangers. Repotting my houseplants. Deciding to abandon my to do list for a few hours or a day because I need to remind myself of why life matters. 

I’m wondering: What are you doing? What do you wish was real in our world? What would you choose as a gift to all of us if you could? Let's do some imagining and conjuring together. 

Tulip blooms at the park

I don’t have the answers. But I’m not interested in ignoring the wound just because I don’t have the exact right supplies to heal it.

Maybe you do just one thing today that gives yourself or someone else some more ease. 

May your cup be one drop (or a whole ounce or two) fuller. 

p.s.  I started writing this last week, and, since that time, I’ve been able to do some chores around my home (Reader: I did the dishes, I put the clothes away), listen to a friend read a brilliant short story that made me feel seen, have conversations with friends, take a walk in the park next to those hundreds-of-years-old oak trees. Witness dozens of varieties fo tulips in bloom. These things mattered and helped. I feel a little replenished. It is possible. 

p.p.s. When I was suddenly locked out of Instagram and Facebook yesterday, my first feeling was panic. Once I realized I was not hacked and it was a giant outage, the feeling that followed was enormous relief. Good to know. And good to remember I can allow myself to be absent from those scrolling spaces whenever I want to.