I love mugs! I love THIS mug...
.....but I had an awful time with actually letting myself buy this mug.
Gather.
I saw the black’n’white plaid mug and I beelined for the store shelf it sat on in wait for MEEEEE, I just knew it! The perfect plaid mug, I needed in my life... but the Gather printed on it, I felt a might intimidated by. In the end I had decided that the Gather could make at least a little bit of sense for me since I did find myself wanting to be immediately gathered up in the plaidly glad comfort that coffee in this mug of coziness was promising to offer. I still felt guilty over the lack of actual GatherI have in my life but when I found another matching mug hidden away behind a picture frame on a shelf on the other side of the store it made more sense that I could Gather two of these demandingly beautiful mugs in the cupboard at home..... so I bought them and made peace with the Gather on each because there were two.
It took me a few days, after bringing them home, to actually let myself use one of my new and frustratingly intimidating Gather mugs... I think I just Gathered that they were better off Gathering on their own than with someone like me who has not a Gather. I spent my first coffee time with my new apologetically shaming but still surprisingly beloved and beautifully plaid mug... making certain that the Gather stayed turned from my view and all of the mug I could see was just plain ol’ plaid. I was just grateful that the Gather was only printed on ONE side.
But it still bugged and gnawed at me that I was holding a mug what was tryin’ta tell me what to do. And WHYYYYYwould it be so mean in telling me to ‘Gather’ what I just don’t have to gather??!!!
So, back up on the shelf the mug went, beside its Gather match... both Gather’s facing the back of the cupboard so I didn’t have to see either each time I opened the door for a mug that definitely wasn’t going to be either one of them!
I was seriously mad at those hurtful mugs, as ridiculous as that sounds
Because this is generally my life...
...just me at the table with my quiet comforts.
See, Enz is not a ‘family kind’ of person so family dinners at the table just aren’t his thing like they are mine. It’s important to me to have meals at the table like (in my own personal hearts belief) a family should. But when Enz gets home from work he wants to come inside, not be bothered, go through his mail, check his messages, send his texts, make his phone calls and then he likes to take his plate of dinner into the living room so he can eat in front of the television. I always set two places at either the table or island but it’s almost always just me sitting there, unless it’s summertime when screened room dinners are necessary thanks to the house being too hot without air conditioning. And honestly, it’s actually not even a big deal because he’s only very rarely home by dinnertime and I gave up on waiting to have dinner well over twenty years ago because with two hours between his work day end and our dinner time, he has WAY more than enough time to get home for dinner if he wants to.
And so it’s remained pretty consistent throughout the years... just me at this table with my quiet comforts.
But then one morning, I realized something... something BIG.
It wasn’t JUST me at this table.
And I remember that day well’n’clearly and with a gratitude I can’t even begin to convey through words. I was sitting at the table with my plain blue coffee mug in hand, just about to take my first sip while, at the same time, reaching first for my puzzle book and knowing that not long after I would be reaching for my Bible and my notebook... and that’s the moment when Gather finally found me the peaceful I’d been missing out on.
I sure DO Gather!
All these years of breakfast and lunch and dinner sitting alone at this table, or at the screened room table or at the kitchen island... spent seemingly on my own..... never really were, I finally realized as I looked around at my little breakfast Gathering of comforts laid out on the table before me. I’ve actually always Gathered!
I GATHER... My beliefs. My blessings. My thoughts. My regrets. My anxieties. My joys. My worries. My hopes. My memories. My bright-sides. My words. My disappointments. My goals. My flaws. My interests. My hurts. My wonderings. My mistakes. My dreams. My fears. My understandings. My humiliations. My thankfuls. My challenges. My faults. My curiosity. My Prayers..... and the list just continues on.......
I had finally realized that alone time doesn’t have to be lonesome, even if there is way too much of it. Perspective... when it came to the Gather mugs, mine had just needed a little adjustment.
And so, in the moment after having finally found peace with my own quiet way of Gather, I just HAD to do it... I got up from the table, carefully carried my still steaming hot and not quite full (but as full as I can handle carrying these days without spilling) light blue coffee mug over to the counter, pulled one of the Gather mugs down from the cupboard and did a switch-pour of coffee to match the switch-pour of my perspective.
Now, I know there are probably many who might say to me, like Enz actually did say to me, with great emphatic frustration... “GILLIANNNNN!!! It’s JUST a fuckin’ COFFEE CUP!!!!! Who cares what it says on it?!! If you like it, for crying out loud just USE it!!!”and in a way that’s probably a fair suggestion. I mean, “.....but words will never hurt me.” Right?? But sometimes words do hurt, and they hurt in different ways than can be expected. Even a simple word like Gather which I’m sure, in this instance, was meant to be comforting but instead stung with loneliness. But it only stung with loneliness until I finally realized it’s just not true.
I want to know... Do you have moments of great personal conflict over even the slightest misunderstanding? People often tell me I’m too sensitive and that I take even slight upsets way too personally but I don’t think that’s true. I think that I’m just always looking deeper, trying to find true and absolute connection in life and that includes the tiny things as well as the big things. I know I’m not alone when it comes to finding grand meaning in even the tiniest noticings.
