“Some look and all they find
Are problems and alibis
But my cup is one sixteenth full
I'm getting there, but the getting's slow.”
Are problems and alibis
But my cup is one sixteenth full
I'm getting there, but the getting's slow.”
Glen Phillips
Released
This may not seem like earth shattering news, but for me it is life changing. For as long as I can remember I have been a glass half empty person. Even as a child. Even before my parents divorced, tearing a hole in my safety net, I looked at life from a small cautious place. I've always been a worrier, and on the obsessive side. If I were offered a free trip to Paris, I would immediately start worrying about how many pairs of shoes to pack and if I owned a warm, yet stylish, jacket. Lately though, I find that I'm a tad more buoyant. When I look at the glass, it is no longer half empty. Most of the time it is at least half full.
When I was in kindergarten I spent afternoons at our neighbor Martha's house, waiting for my mother to get home from work. Martha was a nice woman. She made my birthday cakes and, let me tell you, that woman worked magic with frosting. I especially remember the princess cake with the doll standing in the middle, adorned in a full length floral gown made entirely of sugary sweet icing. Once, she helped me decorate a cake that won first prize in my elementary school cake baking contest.
Yet my memories of kindergarten afternoons at Martha's are small and tight. I remember waiting anxiously for my parents. Of trying to sneak down the street to my house where my father, who worked the night shift as a deputy sheriff, was sleeping. Wrapped up in my longing for my dad to wake up and my mom to come home, I was unable to make something joyful out of those afternoons. I do not remember drawing or looking at books. I have no memory of bouncing a ball or playing with neighborhood kids. Only of waiting and longing. When my mom got home and my dad woke up, THEN my life could resume. It would be that way for a long time. For years I waited for someone or something that would enable me to really start living.
When I was in college I wanted a pair of low heeled red pumps. With a limited budget, I began haunting the Macy's sales racks, just waiting for the perfect pair of shoes to go on sale. I imagined how my life would be better somehow if I could walk through it in just the right pair of red pumps. Like Dorothy's ruby slippers, these pumps would take me where I wanted to go. I developed a rich fantasy life, one where I met the perfect boyfriend who accompanied me to art museums and cafes, my red pumps leading the way down that yellow brick road to happily ever after. My friend Laura began referring to these mythical shoes as the “life perfecting red pumps” as the weeks of my search carried on. When I found them, a pair of size 8 Nine West, low heeled red pumps, on sale, my heart soared and my feet were beautifully adorned. But, alas, my life was not dramatically altered.
It's a silly story, but those red pumps became a metaphor for me. I began to see that I was a person who waited for people or things to come along and fill me up. When I met the right man, I'd be happy. When I found the right job, life would be good. If only I had better hair or the right clothes, THEN everything would fall into place. I wasn't able to take even the first step toward joy until someone came along and put ruby slippers on my feet. But, of course, ruby slippers are only found in Oz. I had to learn to live in Kansas (well, California actually) without the help of a wizard whose magic is only smoke and mirrors anyway.
I don't long for ruby slippers anymore. I prefer to walk barefoot, my feet touching the ground, feeling the sweet wet grass and the occasional sharpness of a rock on my sole. And I am no longer waiting for my parents or prince charming to make me happy. Instead I am looking, really looking, both inward and outside of myself at what is already there. I have gifts to share and amazing people in my life. And damn if there isn't love and beauty all around me. I swear I did not trade in the life perfecting red pumps for a pair of rose colored glasses. I know that terrible things happen to good people every day. In fact, I am better equipped to really see the tragedies and injustices of our broken world now. You see, a few years back I began to focus on gratitude as a spiritual practice and I think it's starting to take hold.
To really practice gratitude, you have to be present for what is happening in your life right now, not looking ahead to the future. You also have to turn off what writer Anne Lamott calls radio station KFKD (yeah it's what you think). That's the station inside your head that tells you how misunderstood you are in one ear, and raps about what a loser you are in the other. When I can do those two things (no easy task), it's amazing what I find to be grateful for. In his book, Simply Pray, Erik Walker Wikstrom says, “Spending some time each day in Naming prayer – naming and noting the ways in which the sacred is moving in your life and reminding yourself of all you have to be thankful for – might just tip the balance toward seeing the glass (at least) half full.” I think he's right.
So, gratitude. Who knew that's what it would take to fill my cup? I keep asking myself if there is anything I can do to help my kids learn this so they don't have to wait until they're in, what my husband calls, their extremely late mid-forties to figure it out. I hope so. I want them to know that bare feet are far more comfortable than ruby slippers. And when they're thirsty, there's a big old glass right in front of them,and it's more than half full.
