What fills your cup?

It’s 5:15 a.m. on a Saturday in November, and I’m in my cozy spot with coffee on the warmer. The morning is chilly – only 43 degrees – but the air… oh the air. That subtle breeze coming off the ocean gives it such a fresh smell.

I open my window to let the beautiful Florida sunrise fill my window canvas, listening to the fountain on the lake and the morning sounds while I settle in. I’ve been cranking out newspapers for the past three days – up at 5am, falling asleep on the couch at 9 p.m., glued to my computer producing three publications in a row.

Most people would call this exhausting. I call it everything I love to do.

There’s something that happens on Saturday mornings after weeks like this – a kind of overflow. My mind is full, not empty. I’m not collapsed here trying to recover my soul; I’m here because my soul is brimming and needs to spill onto the page.

At the end of the day yesterday, I was tired but not exhausted. I wrapped up my work day, created a “girl dinner” and sat down to watch what I knew would be the final episodes of Desperate Housewives – stay with me here.

Lynette had JUST reconciled with Tom. It was “everything she had ever wanted”… again. And yet, when another job offer of a lifetime comes, she still feels that hole, the one she has never been able to fill. Throughout the entire series, this pattern repeats: she gets the dream job then gets pregnant and quits, or her husband has another crisis and she drops everything to support him. Always putting her thing down for someone else’s thing, always feeling incomplete even when she has “everything.”

But then she gives a toast at a wedding, and she tells the newlyweds to never forget how they’re feeling in this moment. To remember that right now, in this point in time, they have the thing that fills the hole they feel in their soul throughout their lives.

And it hit me: we can’t see that we have everything we’ve always wanted when we’re living it.

When I broke up with him in February 2022, I felt like I had just graduated college and the world was my oyster again. Wow, that short sentence represents 10 years of my life. It was a relationship I entered into shortly after ending a narcissistic 20 year marriage without taking the time to heal…to really heal, stop the pattern and find myself. I didn’t know what that meant at the time, I just knew I needed to do something different. I didn’t cry when I left. I felt amazing. And free, oh the freedom! I can go anywhere at any time wherever I want…ahhh.

Within months, I had the job offer of a lifetime – in Florida, with the beach and the palms. This is my dream, it will fill in the missing piece!

But here’s the thing: there was no missing piece. Florida didn’t complete me – it gave me space to bloom into who I already was. For the first time, I stopped shrinking myself to fit at the wrong tables. I found the tables where I belong – where my voice, my stories, my way of connecting actually matters.

I’m connecting dots, meeting people, creating community, telling stories. My tribe gets it, gets me. Everything flows differently when you’re not constantly making yourself smaller. It fills the well instead of emptying it.

And Saturday morning isn’t recovery from exhaustion – it’s overflow.

So what fills my cup?

For the first time in my life, it’s me. It’s my life. It’s my career. It’s the sun, the beach, the palm trees, the peace.

My cup runneth over.

And I’m never forgetting it.

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My word stack for today: Your Choice + Fills My Cup

Start with the foundation:

fills my cup, [fils-mahy-kuhp] phrase, Southern wisdom meets morning ritual

Uncensored: What actually matters to you versus the bullshit everyone else thinks should matter to your life

Meaningful: What restores your soul when the world takes more than it gives

Whimsical: The magical combination that makes Monday mornings feel like Saturday possibilities

Then stack YOUR word on top. What fills YOUR cup?

• Nursing + Fills My Cup
• Grace + Fills My Cup
• Adulting + Fills My Cup
• Chaos + Fills My Cup
• Family + Fills My Cup

For me today, sitting in my November morning with ocean breeze and fountain sounds, it’s: Tracy + Fills My Cup

Because for the first time in my life, I fill my own cup. I am what fills it.

The “Fills My Cup” story stack is part of our Coffee Stories collection. It’s designed to be your stack’s foundation – pair it with any word that speaks your truth. Build your story, one mug at a time.

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Shop Fills My Cup:

A few things that help my speak my truth:

☕ Coffee Warmer – [Amazon Link] – Never let your coffee go cold again
🛋️ Heated Blanket – [Amazon link] – Lightweight warmth for cozy mornings. This is on my couch!
🎵 Morning Jazz Playlist – [YouTube link] – My go-to ambiance on a cool, NE Florida fall morning.

Some links are Amazon affiliate links, which means I earn a small commission if you purchase through them at no extra cost to you. I only share products I actually use and love!