My emotional support water bottle

(If a bottle like this isn't familiar, you don't know enough Gen Z.)

I think I must be blogging wrong because friends reach out after my posts asking “Are you okay?” or saying “I’m here for you.” I tremendously appreciate it, of course (please don’t stop!!), but I also wonder how even my best attempts to be positive come off as a cry for help. My two favorite animated characters are 

1. Eeyore -  
   
   
   
2. Sadness - 
   
   
   

if that’s any kind of indicator. (Vintage Maleficent too, but we won’t go there.)  Okay also Lego Batman - 

I digress.

The point is I’m well aware of my pessimistic (or what I call ‘realistic’), perfectionistic (better known as ‘driven’) nature. Wish I could say I’m comfortable with it, but that would be a stretch. I can say I accept it, though. Sometimes.

An interesting part of being a melancholic is its osmotic nature. I take up or let out hope depending on my environment. Apologies for the biology metaphor, but I think hope being water fits on multiple levels. True of both, we can’t live without them. In their absence, the building blocks of life dry up and die. Like water, hope moves from high concentration to low, even through walls within us and between us. As water circulates nutrients through our bodies, hope carries sustenance to our souls.

Here’s a nerdy one. The transfer of chemical energy that keeps us alive here on Earth is a cycle of water splitting (photosynthesis) and reforming (cellular respiration) at the atomic level. In nature, each kingdom takes up more than it puts out of some chemical energy, and it yields more than it consumes of another. Other kingdoms do the reverse. Good ole water is one of the transport vehicles. If I squint really hard, I can see hope working the same way between individuals at different times & places.

So when I’m parched, admittedly too often, I look for a drink. I run my inner dowsing rod over the world’s barren wasteland of false hope hunting for God’s thirst-quenching stream. My interactions with friends, family, & coworkers provide the tap. I mentally replay preceding days and weeks sipping from acquaintances’ life stories - their hard-fought wins, their well-handled losses, their deliberate courage, their conquered fear. I soak it up.

I strive to fuel the cycle, not just draw from it. I share my own stories of courage & fear, wins & losses, aiming to offer at least a drip. So “am I  okay?” I mean, I think so? Am I “crying for help?” In a way, yes. I need your hydrating narrative in my life. When you can be Tigger or Joy or Unikitty, please do! I’ll do the same for you. 

On second thought, hope better resembles a nuclear reaction than a cellular one. Unlike water, it multiplies as it spreads. That’s what I need. That’s why I blog. 

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:13-14