Empty Your Cup

Check on your friends with seniors, they probably aren't okay

It’s no secret that my oldest is graduating high school next week and, generally speaking, I am not okay. 

With her younger siblings still in elementary school, I feel as if I have two feet in two wildly different worlds — in one, my parenting has shifted into Collaborative Mode (which so far is not my forte), and in the other, I am often still cutting meat and making sure the laundry is clean for Crazy Sock Day.

Whatever equilibrium I once had as a mother, it was solidly rooted in my identity as a mom of very young children. But you guys. They grow up. And yes, I get it, this is life. But you guys—they really actually grow up. This really is life. 

It’s messing with my head.

“How are you doing?” a neighborhood friend asked last weekend, sitting down next to me at the pool. It was the Saturday of Memorial Day, about two weeks before graduation. I don’t see this woman often during the school year, but our paths cross frequently over the summer. Her son is a year older than my daughter, and she just brought him home after his freshman year of college.

“I’ve been meaning to check in on you,” she says. Her kindness warms my heart.  “How are you holding up?”

“Holding up” is something I’m barely doing. I’m more prone to Balling Up (as in curling up into, often while crying). But because at that very moment I felt fine, I told her so. Then quickly added, “—at least for right now.” 

But I proceeded to divulge all the places I’d burst into tears at just the thought of my daughter leaving for college — at work, at the dentist, at Costco — not to mention in the shower, when I drink my morning coffee, while driving. Tears rarely show up when it’s convenient. 

“It’s so hard,” she says and then adds, “and you have this added layer …” I’m taken back by her thoughtfulness, in acknowledging my story — how my mom passed away during this exact same time in my life, the very end of my senior year of high school.

In many ways, it’s like I’m reliving it.

Just this time, it’s with the perspective of a mother. 

My friend and I continue to talk and she assures me I’ll get through it, though I first may have to cry a bucket or a river or what feels like an entire ocean. She tells me about how she sobbed the entire drive home from dropping off her son and then yelled at her husband. 

Feels familiar. 

I’ve been going to therapy now for close to two years. Yes, I should have gone before that, but it was never a good time, and Who has the money? and I am doing okay, aren’t I? But a mix of cancer and Covid and anger and grief pushed me into an office where I now go twice a month to work through [gestures wildly into the air] along with all I’ve learned to bottle up and place high up on a shelf. That happens when tragedy strikes you young, and you figure out strategies — some helpful, some not so much — to keep going.  

My therapist recently explained that some of us walk around with very full emotional cups — currently, mine is filled completely. “But now imagine that your already full cup has more and more emotions being poured into it,” which is exactly how this time in my life feels. “It’s no surprise when even the smallest bump comes, you spill out everywhere.” 

At work, at the dentist, at Costco. 

“I want you to try to purposefully, intentionally empty your cup,” she said. “Play your moody music, journal all the stuff you’d never dream of saying out loud — whatever it is, set aside some time to let your feelings out.” I envision my cup (which is blue and handmade pottery, by the way) having a little spigot near the bottom. What would it be like to lift that lever up and instead of sloshing my big emotions all over the place from up top, I willingly let it drain and drain and drain from the bottom?

These are some of the most tender days I’ve ever lived through. 

Today may be one of the most tender days I’ve ever lived through.

And yet, a constant stream pours in: How did time go so fast? How is she this old? Is she going to be okay? Our family will never be the same. 

I was so young. It felt unreal. How did we do it? Our family was never the same.  

I realize in a year from now, I will be okay. But this transition for my daughter, and the older grief it’s bringing up, is actively breaking my heart. 

A different neighbor stopped by last weekend, and a number of women at the pool have come up to me, and all have asked some version of, “How are you doing?” Each time, their concern has felt like grace.

I don’t know what you’re going through right now. But I just wanted to share this in case you need the permission, or encouragement, or acknowledgment that what you’re managing in life is big. And hard. Or sad, or so very complicated. 

And maybe the healthiest thing we can do for ourselves, and for those we love, is to take some time and instead of filling ourselves up, we empty out.