Emptying the bucket.

I carry a shiny red bucket wherever I go, the kind we all used to play with at the beach with the fancy white plastic handle. You can’t see it, of course, but it’s there, and it does what buckets do best: it holds stuff.

Some contents find their way into the bucket by chance; others are put in deliberately. At times my bucket is light, other times it is so heavy I can hardly carry it. Sometimes my bucket is filled with sweet smelling flowers, other times toxic waste. 

Talking with my daughter in the car tonight, I realized she has a bucket too. Like mine, it gets full of all kinds of stuff, and together we realized that we have a say in what stays in our buckets and what gets poured out. As we discussed our days, she told me about the kind thing this boy did and the good grade she got in a class, and as she spoke the bucket seemed full and light. She shared some bad things as well, like the girl who started a false rumor about someone else and the one teacher she just can’t stand. Her bucket became heavier.

In my own way, I tried to convince her to pour out the bad stuff so her bucket would be lighter and able to carry more of the good stuff, but I heard in my suggestion advice I needed to heed myself. My bucket was full of bad stuff, put there by some of the meanest, most deceitful people I have ever known. It’s weight caused me to stumble throughout my entire day and, just to make it heavier, I watered it down with fear and resentment.  I knew it would not help things to go pour the contents of my bucket into the buckets of those who filled mine, or at least the relief would be short-lived, so I did the only thing in my power: I poured it out of mine.