One thing that makes me happy during deployments is my itty bitty Mr. Coffee.
We have a 12 cup coffee maker that regularly brews 8 to 10 cups of coffee, mostly for Tag who is a coffee monster. But the 4 cup coffee maker is just for me.
It makes me happy to have just the right amount of coffee filling up the tiny little glass carafe. There is no room for more. Who I am is just enough for this coffee pot.
It's meaningful, I suppose, because for the most part I feel insufficient. If you were to ask my honest opinion of myself I would tell you that I am weak. I am lazy. I give up too easily. And you might not believe me, if you're used to seeing me constantly on the go. I am very responsive to those around me.
But in a deployment I am left all alone. With no one about to press me I am inclined to just fall in a heap. I have known myself to stop eating. I have known myself to stop showering. I have known myself to stop caring about life at all. The year I had no employment was the worst of all. I was alone in such a vast expanse of time with no beginning or end.
And you might think that it is something that comes gradually, something that compounds itself over time, but I feel it in me right now. It is as if I am being stretched like a rubber band. Constantly fighting against the pull to give up. So I must tell myself "Now you will take a shower."
Am I starting to sound crazy?
The point is that I need to look at my life as I do the coffee pot. I need to realize that though there is less (strength/will/motivation) inside of me than there might be in others, that it is enough. I have enough. I am enough.
My life is not bigger than I can manage.
I am enough.
You ARE enough, you are right. It isn't always easy to remember, and it's so much easier and seductive to give in to the darkness and the bad thoughts. But you are so much stronger than you give yourself credit for. Like a hot cup of coffee in a hot coffee cup, you are enough.
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