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One time I watched as a street performer in Germany blew my mind. He had a simple clear glass pitcher full of milk in his left hand. And the obligatory upside down, magician’s top hat sitting atop a small linen covered table. He glanced around the half circle of spectators and challenged everyone to focus on the pitcher. He then began to pour the milk into the hat. We all watched as he poured. And poured. And poured. In fact, he never stopped pouring. That was the whole gag. As he poured, the milk never seemed to run out. The pitcher stayed intriguingly full and the hat, itself, never filled up. My preteen mind nearly exploded as I watched in amazement.
Looking back now I realize the magician stood unrealistically close to the table as he poured this milk. He also wore a long sleeve overcoat in the heat of summer. I now realize that he simply had a circulatory pump (a la front yard fountains) under the table and the milk was flowing from the pitcher, into the hat, out the bottom of the hat into the pump, up a tube into his pant leg and eventually out his sleeve into the bottom of the pitcher. Or the dude was some sort of lactose sorcerer. Either way, the trick was impressive.
Lately, I’ve been feeling like the exact opposite of that pitcher of milk. In fact, I’ve been feeling way more like that idiom about squeezing water from a stone. By nature I’m a giver. I love helping others, probably even to a fault. I consider myself to be generous and whether it be my time, or my money, or some talent, I’m usually willing to offer up myself to assist someone else. Through the years it’s given me much joy. I love the look of true gratitude on people’s faces. And usually it costs me very little. Maybe a few bucks or several drops of sweat. All worth it.
Lately, though, I have just felt empty. Now before you bust out the balloons and noisemakers for my pity party, hear me out. I have been giving a lot lately, probably more than usual. People close to me have been in need. I’ve had to volunteer a lot of man hours and more money than I usually would care to part with. My breaking point, so to speak, was this weekend. I had planned to remodel our laundry room and surprise my wife. The goal was to get the whole thing done in about eight hours while she worked. Ambitious, but definitely doable. Then I find out that I had been asked to move furniture at my in-laws right in the middle of my day. I sucked it up and went to move the furniture. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t bitter the whole time. And somehow I still managed to get about 90% of the remodel done before my wife came home. After the adrenaline rush of trying to finish, I realized just how spent I was.
I wish this post had a fantastic ending. I wish it was a self-help story and I was able to point everyone to a place where their pitcher could be refilled. But it’s not. I feel empty. I feel like I have no gas in the tank and nothing left to give. It’s an extremely foreign feeling to me, and I hate it with every ounce of my being. Maybe someone out there has a brilliant answer or some sort of exercise in renewal. I’m all ears.
I need more milk.
Photo (Flickr CC) by Alison Christine
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Chris Day
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