📷 Learning to Look Closer #13: A Cup of Hope

This isn’t one of my photography pictures.

There isn’t dramatic lighting.

There isn’t some tiny bug I almost stepped over.

There isn’t a perfectly timed concert moment or something beautiful happening in the background.

It’s just a mug.

Sitting on my kitchen counter.

With a spoon sticking out of it.

If you didn’t know anything else, you could scroll right past this picture and never think twice about it.

But sometimes the pictures that look the most ordinary are holding things nobody else can see.

Today, while Doodoo was sleeping, I made myself a cup of tea.

Now, that part isn’t unusual.

I love tea.

If I have enough time in the morning, that’s usually what I reach for. All of my teas are caffeine-free, and there’s something about sitting down with a hot cup that I’ve always loved.

But this cup was a little different.

I didn’t make it just because I wanted tea.

I made it because I’m trying to have a baby.

And apparently, wanting something this badly finds its way into some really ordinary parts of your life.

The tea is Pink Stork’s fertility tea.

It has chaste tree berry and red raspberry leaf in it.

Does it work?

I have absolutely no idea.

😂

Am I willing to drink it anyway?

Absolutely.

Because that’s the thing about this fertility journey that I don’t think photographs very well.

A lot of it is invisible.

People see the obvious things.

The doctor appointments.

The conversations about treatment.

The prenatals sitting on the counter.

Eventually, hopefully, maybe one day—

a positive test.

But there’s a whole world happening between those moments.

The Googling.

The reading.

The wondering.

The vitamins.

The tea.

The little changes.

The things you try because somebody somewhere said they might help and you think:

Well…why not?

There’s a strange vulnerability in wanting something this badly.

Because suddenly even the smallest thing can feel connected to it.

You take the prenatal because the doctor told you to.

You make the tea because maybe.

You pay more attention to your body.

You start thinking about things you never used to think about.

You collect little pieces of possibility everywhere you can find them.

And none of those things come with guarantees.

That’s probably the hardest part.

I can do everything I’m supposed to do.

I can try the things that might help.

I can show up for appointments.

I can ask questions.

I can take the vitamins.

I can drink the tea.

And none of it allows me to skip ahead and see how this story ends.

So, for now—

I make the tea.

I sit with the uncertainty.

And I keep trying.

Maybe this cup is doing absolutely nothing except giving me something warm to drink.

That is entirely possible.

😂

But there was something about seeing it sitting there today that made me stop.

Because it didn’t look like much.

Just a green witchy mug on the counter.

But I knew what was inside it.

And more importantly—

I knew why I made it.

Hope doesn’t always look like some huge, beautiful moment.

Sometimes hope is incredibly boring.

Sometimes it comes in a vitamin bottle.

Sometimes it gets scheduled into a doctor’s appointment.

Sometimes it’s something you quietly research at night.

And sometimes—

it steeps in a mug while a little boy sleeps in the other room.

I think that’s what I like about this picture.

There is nothing extraordinary happening in it.

But there is an entire future I’m hoping for sitting just outside the frame.

And maybe that’s part of learning to look closer, too.

Noticing all the tiny things we do when we want something badly enough to keep believing it might happen.

Even when we don’t know what will work.

Even when there are no guarantees.

Even when, for today, hope looks like nothing more than a cup of tea.

Until next time,

—Destiny

P.S. What’s something small you’ve done because you were hoping for something much bigger?