The Cup

Sometimes in life, the cup is half-empty, sometimes it is half-full, sometimes it runneth-over, and sometimes it is bone dry. I’d like to say it is all in a person’s perspective, but I don’t really believe that. I do, however, believe that sometimes, life hands a person a set of circumstances and those circumstances define themselves and all the person can do is deal with the cup they are dealt. That is not always a negative thing, but it is not always positive either. It all depends on what is in the cup and what you do with it.

Tag: blog

  • Post #22: 7/30/26: Do Whatever People Do In Maine

    Post #22: 7/30/26: Do Whatever People Do In Maine

    Cup Status: 3/4 Full

    Summer is winding down, and it is time to begin finishing up projects and preparing for the beginning of the next school year. I am both ready for routine and not excited to lose my freedom. I am enjoying sleeping as much as my body needs it, reading tons of books, and spending time with my family, although occasional breaks do us all some good. I am enjoying working in my garden and getting housework done in a reasonable time frame. But August first is just around the corner, and that is my self-imposed school prep time. So, for the next day, I will allow myself to continue working on the things for myself and my family that I want to. But after August first, I will begin working on curriculum planning again and prepping for the first few weeks of school. I like to have my ducks in a row so that I can walk into the building knowing what I need to copy and prep there, but not freaking out because I can’t remember my first unit. Lol! I think that part of my brain thrives on work and truly enjoys it. Even though the procrastination part of me will put things off during the school year to avoid the pain and suffering that it perceives the work will bring, in reality, it brings satisfaction and a reduction in stress. Brains are crazy.

    So, for now, as a reminder to myself, I have a passage from How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran that talks about the importance of living. By the way, if you haven’t read this book, it was so incredible, insightful, funny, and many more adjectives that won’t do it justice. Of all the books that I have read this summer by female authors, this one is at the top. Towards the end of the book, she talks about the importance of truly living. She says, “The real cost of living is dying, and we’re spending days like millionaires: a week here, a month there, casually spunked until all you have left are the two pennies on your eyes…Personally, I like the fact that we’re going to die. There’s nothing more exhilarating than waking up every morning and going, ‘WOW! THIS IS IT! THIS IS REALLY IT!’ It focuses the mind wonderfully. It makes you love vividly, work intensely, and realize that in the scheme of things, you really don’t have time to sit on the sofa in your undies watching Homes Under the Hammer.” When I read this section, it really struck home with me how much of my life I drag myself out of bed, exhausted, and I go about my daily routine as if I am just trying to get back to my bed. If by some miracle I take a nap or get time to sit watching mindless TV, then I feel happy for some downtime to take care of me. I feel guilty for these moments of “nothing” because there is so much “something” out there that I need to be doing or that I should be grateful for. I should be living loud and large and sucking the marrow from life and taking all it has to give, but sometimes I just don’t have the drive. So, while each day is closer to death, and I know that I am spending days like I have an infinite supply, I don’t know any other way it seems. With summer, I wile away the time doing not much and yet so much. When school starts, I accomplish more in one day than I do in an entire week during the summer. I am not sure which feels better to me. Which is more of an accomplishment? Does it matter? This summer I have been binge-watching Maine Cabin Masters, though not in my undies, just in my around-the-house clothes. I am dreaming of a road trip to see their HQ and to see Niagara Falls on the way. Our family would get their passports so that they can see the American and the Canadian side. My husband has friends in Montreal, and we would catch up with them and get to see the city they describe so lovingly. We will taste-test maple syrup and eat lobster, or whatever you do in Maine as a visitor in the summer. We are midwesterners, so this will be a whole new experience for us! I watch, and I dream. Then my daughter says she wants to go to Las Vegas because the Spy Ninjas HQ is there and she is a huge fan, so we Google Maps how long it would take to drive there. We then begin planning a dream trip to Las Vegas, complete with a visit to Spy Ninjas HQ, riding the gondolas at The Venetian, seeing the neon light museum, and other must-do Vegas things. Then, I think about how much I would love a condo on the water in Galveston, TX, my favorite place to vacation. Owning a piece of paradise on this island has been a dream of ours. My husband wants to own and run a radio station in Galveston, and we would have a condo, and we could stay whenever we wanted to. It would be awesome. When I mention these dreams to others, they say, ” So, go for it!” I say, “With what money?” They say, “If you want it bad enough, you will find a way.” I think life is short. How can we make this work? But I look at the bank account and the month and the money left, and I sigh. Today may be the day that I have, but it will be filled with travel dreams for now and curriculum planning for tomorrow. Maybe we will get to fulfill these dreams soon. One never knows. Till then, I will keep planning and dreaming.

  • Post #21: 7/4/26: Career and Creativity

    Post #21: 7/4/26: Career and Creativity

    Cup Status: 3/4 Full

    In a previous post, I wrote down a goal that I would like to become a writer who is able to support herself with her writing. Retirement from teaching is 9 years away, but I will be many years away from Medicare being accessible to me, so I do need to make financial plans for that future. But, the practical part aside, I enjoy writing. I write for fun, to get emotions out, to process my ideas, to create for my teaching career, and for creativity. It is this last one that has recently become a reminder to me of its importance. While reading Yes Please by Amy Pohler, I found so many ways to connect to the messages that she wove throughout her memoir. But there was one towards the end that really struck a chord with me. Pohler is comparing a career to a bad boyfriend and then she moves on to talking about the importance of creativity versus a career. I am not going to talk too much about my career in this post. I do believe that it is a noble one that is absolutely necessary and is something that I have given 21 years of my life to, so far, but for this post, I am going to focus mostly on what Pohler says about creativity, because some of what she says about a career can absolutely be applied to teaching as much as it can to the entertainment industry.

    Pohler says, “…let me make a distinction between career and creativity. Creativity is connected to your passion, that light inside you that drives you. That joy that comes when you do something that you love. That small voice that tells you, ‘I like this. Do this again. You are good at it. Keep going.’ That is the juicy stuff that lubricates our lives and helps us to feel less alone in the world.” I am trying to tap more into my creativity. I am trying to use it to make a difference in my life and to increase my happiness quotient. I don’t have a lot of time right now for extended creative projects. My younger children can be a bit of a handful and it is summer, after all. But I have completed phase one of a fairy garden for my 6-year-old. I have planted and am tending a vegetable garden for my family. The daily harvest of zucchini, green beans, peppers, and lettuce has been so beautiful. The tomatoes and yellow squash are close to being ready for harvest, and the cucumber, broccoli, onions, strawberries, and pumpkins are growing and growing, getting ready for a harvest that is sure to come. The creativity I can use in nature makes me feel alive. I love when my hands are in the soil. I love to coax life from seeds and to benefit from the harvest. I love to plant flowers and see the explosion of color as the blooms burst free. This is what I am transforming my backyard into–the garden oasis I have always wanted. It is a creativity of its own.

    My second form of creativity is writing. I took a very long break from writing on this blog because of life circumstances. When I am depressed and overwhelmed, I default to hiding in my internal cave. I push away those things that make me happy. I do not know why I do this, but it is almost as if I don’t believe that I deserve to be happy in the midst of the darkness. But I am going to do my best to not fall back into that cave, that trap of my own creation. I am going to write to “lubricate my life” as Pohler says and to “help us [me] feel less alone in this world.” When I write, even if no one reads my posts, it helps me to feel like my feelings are out in the world and maybe my realizations and crazy aha moments might help someone else as well. If not, that is ok too, but at least it is helping me, and it is giving me a creative outlet for my words.

    I plan to extend my creativity to my career again soon enough, but with the renewed vigor of someone who has had the summer to rest. Teaching is indeed the career of creativity in the long-range planning and in the moment. It is a great mirror and a great collaboration of learning. It is output and reflection all at once. But when summer comes, my creativity gets to focus on me and my needs, and it is glorious.

    Besides talking about creativity, Pohler does make some interesting points about careers that I can’t not mention. She says, “I will say it again. Ambivalence is key. You have to care about the work, but not about the result. You have to care about how good you are and how good you feel but not about how good people think you are or how good people think you look…You will never climb Career Mountain and get to the top and shout, ‘I made it.’ You will rarely feel done or complete or even successful. Most people I know struggle with that complicated soup of feeling slighted on the one hand and like a total fraud on the other…Ambivalence can help tame the beast. Remember a career is a bad boyfriend. It likes it when you don’t depend on it. It will reward you every time you don’t act needy. It will chase you if you act like other things (passion, friendship, family, longevity) are more important to you.” I am not fully sure why this resonated with me so much, because I do not fully feel that teaching is a bad boyfriend, but I can say that there are days when I would like to be ambivalent and stop caring, to break up with it and find something new to fill my days. There are days when it feels like teaching takes and takes and takes and doesn’t care for my needs and when I try to find a better work-life balance, teaching reminds me that it is there with mountains of work to complete. Until I retire, my work will never be complete. I will not be able to climb career mountain and say that I have made it. I will be able to say that I did my best, despite sometimes feeling like an absolute fraud with imposter syndrome. I will always care about my work AND the outcome. I can’t not think about the results, so ambivalence, on the whole, cannot be key for me. I will do my best to not worry about what others think about me and to infuse as much of my creativity and passion into my career as I can because that is where the joy is. Teaching is most definitely a “complicated soup of feeling” but with the reminder from “That small voice that tells you, ‘I like this. Do this again. You are good at it. Keep going.’” I don’t need others to tell me that I am a good teacher, but I do need to remind myself that when things get difficult, I must lean into my creativity and not default to the status quo for survival. This is my goal. Lean into the creative and be ambivalent about the things that don’t matter. The noise from the government, society, and even some people I care about. I must remember to be passionate. To be a light for myself and others as I move forward and do my best to stay out of my cave. It is the best way to fill my cup.

  • Post #10: 8/7/25: Thriving on Stress

    Post #10: 8/7/25: Thriving on Stress

    Cup Status: Filling Up, But Confused About Why

    So, I’ve really been thinking lately about why I feel more comfortable and like myself when I am busy and have deadlines and am, for lack of a better word, stressed. Why is it that I seem to thrive on stress? Why is my baseline for normal filled with a racing heart, shallow breathing, a pounding headache, and reminders to just breathe? The closer I get to the start of school, the closer I get to all of the deadlines, the more alive I feel. This just feels weird. I was in a therapy session recently and my therapist gave me a deck of cards that had different words that represent needs on them such as “valued” and “loved” and “respected” and others such as “creative” and “financial security”. He asked me to organize them however I wanted to in order to categorize them to show where those needs are currently being met, at least according to me. I decided on three categories: family/home, friends, and work. I started putting cards in piles and it soon became apparent that I have most of my needs met at work. When I looked closer at the needs that are being met at work, I realized that many of them could, and probably should, be met in different ways in my personal life, if only I let them. But then, I hear my therapist saying, don’t should all over your life. So instead, I will say, that I will be finding other ways to meet the needs that work is currently the only place that is meeting them. For example, “creativity.” I used to love scrapbooking, but I haven’t done it in 15 years despite having all of the supplies to enjoy the hobby. “Growth” is another need that gets met at work, but at home, I am not sure where I can grow at home. I am looking for ways to do this, besides literally growing food in my garden. The problem is, shifting my mindset and trying to live this different way seems impossible. I don’t even know where to start or how to do this. So, I do what I do best and I start researching. As a starting point, here is what I have found so far thanks to the article “CALM IS A CHOICE – STRESS IS A CHOICE”(https://martawilson.com/calm-is-a-choice/), “The brain chemicals that generate enthusiasm for a challenge are different from those that generate fear of a threat. And in many cases, whether we experience enthusiasm or fear is a matter of choice. We can choose attitudes that challenge, motivate and mobilize us, and that bring out the best in us. In other words, we can circumvent the fight or flight impulse by choosing to feel neither. How? By changing how we think.” It’s that idea of choosing how to think that confuses me. We can choose a new attitude. But, sometimes when we are in the middle of the stressful situation or the challenge facing us is so daunting, that can seem impossible. It is, however, something that I am going to actively try because I hope to get to where this next portion describes, “Eventually, we learn how to choose so our bodies don’t click into a fight or flight response at all. When we take responsibility for our assumptions, we begin to break the cycle of stress and become free to face seeming threats with energy and enthusiasm. What’s required is a conscious mental shift in how we view our world. What’s required is a change in attitude.” Not everything requires fight or flight. I need to remember that. A challenge can be exciting. It doesn’t have to soul crushing or migraine inducing, right? This will definitely be an uphill climb, but I am going to try to begin it with a positive attitude.