This is really a stupid post, but I have words, and I have sadness.
When I was maybe twelve or thirteen, our 4-H club picked up trash along county roads in our area as a community service.
At the first ‘S’ curve north of Bainbridge I found this cup on the right side of the road, down in the ditch, nestled in crab grass. Now who would’ve ever thrown a perfectly good coffee mug out into a ditch? It was just past April 30th, an odd time for heart mugs, but, maybe it was the result of a broken relationship following what was a happy Valentine’s Day two months prior. That has always been my story.
I kept it.
I’ve had it ever since.
And ironically it’s the cup I pull out of the cabinet, out of the way back because no one else is allowed to use it, when I’m feeling nostalgic for parts of my childhood, when I’m lonely, or when I just feel incapable of being the parent and adult I should be.
Ironically because the day I found the cup is one of the (many) worst days of my childhood. It’s a day cemented in my mind, I can only imagine how it lives in my little sister Shelby’s mind since it was the day we celebrated her birthday. But, it was one of those days that made me want to stop. Life wasn’t going to be worth surviving; not that day, probably tomorrow, and definitely not for the years and years I still had to live at home.
But the cup was only ever a joy to me.
I bragged to people about having and using a cup I found in a ditch. I thought being gross to people was the coolest thing.
Every possible kind of emotion is tied to this cup.
I used it for my highest highs, when I had a crush and the hearts described my teenage whims; it was used during my lowest lows, when I was depressed and the hearts stood for true Love that is anchoring.
I used it all the time when it stood for nothing at all but was simply my cup.
I have memories of spending time with loved ones while drinking tea or coffee.
Memories of mornings by myself, a clean kitchen, goats waiting to be milked, breakfast ready for siblings.
I married and at first I used it in happiness all the time; I was pregnant! We were planning a trip, I had success in flower growing. Little things, big things, happiness.
As time went on it was used less, and then it started getting pulled out when I was disconnected, angry, frustrated, depressed. When the memories and familiar feelings from my childhood and teen years welled back up.
It got a lot of use for the year and a half we lived in Greentown.
Then we moved home and it’s gotten quite a bit of happy use again. Days when I’m seeing the kids do what I did as a child; nostalgic use.
And days, like a couple days ago when I fail at parenting correctly, when it’s tied back to my childhood and all the times my parents didn’t know what they were doing, but I survived, I turned out, and here I am, so maybe my kids are going to be okay, too.
And then today.
I told the girls to unload the dishwasher. And my mug was the casualty.
So it’s time to let it go.
And it really shouldn’t hurt this much.
But I am pregnant.
And I’m always nostalgic.
And this mug has been with me for somewhere around 16 years and it holds things I’m scared of remembering, yet afraid of forgetting.
So had I just done the work and all the jobs myself, I’d still get to use it, but that’s not right.
I’m training another generation to work and serve the world, and I’m going to have to train them how to let go and move on; how to love the people, not the things. Because, I guess there’s a reason the cup is gone now.
It’s time to let go.
And If only I forced myself to make time for posts that would actually be beneficial to readers, or at least hold good memories and lessons for me to look back on!
