Empty

Day Two - There are different kinds of empty. There is the empty that is left when everything is used up. Like a glass that had ice cold water in minutes ago and now all that is left is the glass and the condensation on the outside of it. The water has filled something else...this is an empty with no sadness. This is an empty that has a purpose. An empty glass is a glass that can be refilled easily.

Another kind of empty is a feeling. It's the kind of empty that cannot be recovered easily. It is the kind of ache inside that you have been used up and may never recover, at least not without a vacation and some really good rest. This empty is like exhaustion. It is a using of all resources. It's a feeling that you have nothing left to give and you are unsure, even if you had a tiny drop of something left, you may not give it. This is a tired kind of empty.

The last kind of empty is the saddest and hardest kind of empty to deal with. This empty is loss. This empty is the loss of something or someone that is never coming back. This empty is not temporary. It cannot be recovered because it is a place in your heart that used to be filled with someone and now they are gone. No one else can fill this space. It is a space reserved for grandmothers, fathers, husbands, daughters, brothers, friends, and home. This kind of empty has a name written in permanent ink. It cannot be erased. It's there forever. It's how we were made.

The funny thing about empty is that we keep filling, even in the midst of it. Our heart has a capacity for both fullness and emptiness, at the same time. We keep loving knowing that we still lose. I like that. It tells me that this kind of empty is also about something amazing. It is about willingness for full and empty spaces in our hearts. It is about love that keeps going even in the empty spaces. This is beautiful to me.