Empty Buckets, Part 2

I am now a fully vaccinated member of society, and as of Friday, will have passed my 2 week wait. To celebrate, I am going to get a much longed-for manicure. A haircut won’t be far behind, I’m sure. There is a part of me that can’t wait to be able to go out and rejoin society. Of course, the kids won’t be safe for awhile, but with better weather here and more fully vaccinated adults, I’m confident that backyard barbeques are not far off.

What I’m not confident about is our collective ability to reenter community. It’s funny, I spent two years writing a book on community, just to publish it into a world where community got so much more complicated. Not only do we have to navigate the squishy messiness of life, but now we have to figure out people’s comfort or discomfort with being together, quarantining, and precautions. From there, we need to relearn how to be a person in community. I’m so used to the quirks and foibles of the four people in my immediate family, but I’ve forgotten how to overcome my small (and sometimes large) annoyances at the rest of the world.

I guess I also need to be reminded why this community thing was so important to me. It really was. But now I’m so tired, and so isolated, and so overwhelmed all of the time. The idea of pouring out for another person seems impossible. I suppose that’s why I started my book with a chapter on self-care. And I won’t lie. Those self-care skills helped me survive this year. But it’s hard to fill a bucket that is constantly being drained and there wasn’t much opportunity for a break this year.

Maybe that’s the first step to reentering the world. Admitting that I just don’t have what it takes to be a good community member right now. I’m not feeling able to be generous, or vulnerable, or forbearing at the moment. And this year has left such a debt that I don’t know when I will feel up to it again. I’m not fit for human contact most of the time.

But paradoxically, human contact is exactly what will fill up my bucket fastest. Spending time with my favorite people, relaxing without having to think of the sink full of dishes, able to just be together? I need community to be able to be the generous, kind person I used to be.

The other day, a dear friend of mine arranged for her and four other friends to come over, just to sit with me in the week after Rowan’s diagnosis. They wanted to come and be with me, let me vent if I needed to. Mostly, I just wanted a little slice of normalcy. We all sat outside around the fire pit and spent time together. I thought people would come, hang out for awhile, and then make excuses and leave. But they stayed for hours and it was delightful. I came into that community emptier than empty, my life once again laid bare by bad news. And I left smiling. Laughing over gallows humor and making light of stories that come from heavy burdens.

Maybe that’s how we reenter community. Burdened, raw, and empty. And remembering what I have seemed to forget: community reflects back to us what we put in, holding us when we need it the most.