When life is like a cup of coffee
A couple of years ago, I found my favorite coffee cup. I immediately noticed the cup’s vibrant colors that (I would later learn) magically add to my coffee’s richness in flavor. I loved the cup’s wide shape, and the weight of the cup sat perfectly in my hand. I’d been enjoying coffee for many years, but this cup somehow brought me joy every morning.
Well, all was good in my coffee drinking world until that fateful day. I dropped my favorite cup on the tile floor and a chunk broke off of it. My heart sank. I quickly grabbed the glue and began my repair. I did glue the piece back on, but the cup was different now. It didn’t look quite the same. It wasn’t as pretty to look at because you could still see the crack across its face.
Over time, something interesting happened. I found that my coffee cup still added to the richness of my coffee. Friends would ask about my cup and I would take pride in explaining how I fixed the cup and continued to use it. In fact, I started to notice that the crack gave the cup some character. The cup was now unique. I learned to enjoy this cup even more than I had when it was “perfect.” It was changed, but I loved it even more.
This cup is a lot like our lives. Bad things do happen to all of us. We suffer loss of people and things that mean a great deal to us. Some of us experience terrible trauma. All of us make mistakes, some of which hurt ourselves or others. Suffering can be deep and take a long time to process. We desperately try to fix ourselves and find our old selves again, but this seldom works. Why? Because we change when we suffer. Like that coffee cup, we now have scars and maybe we see the world differently. When we experience loss, a little bit of that feeling never really goes away. It’s hard to see that we will be okay even if we no longer feel like we did before life knocked us down. That is what makes all of us uniquely perfect in our own way.
If you’re struggling to find yourself after suffering through a period of your life. Instead of trying to become who you were before, remember the coffee cup and focus on who you are now.
Chris Guzniczak
Licensed Professional Counselor Intern
Under Supervision of Tiffany Smith LPC-S, LMFT-S, NCC
