National Coffee Day 2026: My Life in Cups.
Today is National Coffee Day, friends! Which, let's be honest, is basically a national holiday for me. (Every day is coffee day around here. Today is just the day the rest of the world catches up.)
A while back I wrote about Moms, But Make It Coffee, where every mom got her own coffee drink personality. This time I want to go a different direction. I don't want to talk about what we drink. I want to talk about what we drink it out of. I’ve realized that oftentimes, the containers we do life in are just as important as what’s in them.
When I think back over my life, I don't necessarily remember it in years. I remember it in cups. Specifically cups of coffee and all the various types of cups and tumblers I’ve used throughout the years. There are certain cups or mugs in my cabinet today that when I use them, I’m magically transported back to a specific memory. Two of my favorite mugs that I use on the weekends come from literal opposite spaces on the Earth: The giftshop at the actual Library of Alexandria, outside of Cairo, Egypt and then a mug that I paid .50 for at the Talk & Shop Thrift Store in Bucksport, ME while visiting my aunt and uncle a few summers ago. Every cup has a story…here’s a few of mine.
The Styrofoam Cup
In my first year of teaching, my coffee came from the teacher's lounge. It was a glass pot that had not been properly cleaned since roughly the Clinton administration, and I poured it into a squeaky Styrofoam cup. It was burnt. It was bitter. It was free. And I drank every drop of it.
That cup taught me something I carried through 18 years in education: you don't need the perfect setup to show up for kids. You just need to show up. Sometimes with lukewarm coffee and a stack of ungraded papers tucked in your clipboard. The thing that matters most is that you show up. Kids noticed then and they still notice now. While I’ve thankfully upgraded my coffee and my mug, that particular lesson has stayed strong.
The Microwaved Mug
Many years after that first year of teaching, motherhood came along. Enter the mug that gets reheated three times and is still found sitting in the microwave at 4 p.m.
If you know, you know.
Nobody warns you that becoming a mom often means you'll never again drink a hot cup of coffee start to finish on the weekends. I used to think that was a sad thing. Now I think of that forgotten mug as proof of life. It means somebody needed me more than I needed my coffee in that moment. (And then I heated it up again, because I'm not a hero.)
The Travel Tumbler
This is my Saturday-morning-on-the-soccer-sideline cup. It's scratched up from falling out of the car while I balance too many bags. The lid doesn't seal quite right because it has fallen and I happily take whatever coffee I can salvage because we all know that’s not my first cup of the day in this mug. It has survived being knocked over by a folding chair more than once.
Watching my son play takes me right back to my childhood, sitting on the sidelines while my dad coached my brother. I don't remember what my parents drank back then, but I remember the feeling: cold bleachers, early mornings and late nights, and the grownups clutching something warm while they cheered. Now I'm the grownup with the warm cup. Funny how that works…
The Meeting Cup
As a school counselor and later a state education leader, I learned that offering someone a cup of coffee is one of the simplest ways to say you're welcome here. When a parent walked into a tough meeting, the first thing I'd ask was, "Can I get you some coffee?" Not because they needed caffeine. Because they needed a second to breathe, and something to hold.
Then I became the parent on the other side of the IEP meeting table. And, friends, I understood that coffee cup in a whole new way. Holding it gave my hands something to do so they wouldn't shake. It gave me a reason to pause before I answered. It was a tiny anchor in a room where I felt like I was drifting. Everything about that cup of coffee grounded me in a moment where I desperately needed it.
If you're heading into one of those meetings soon, just bring the cup of coffee. Hold it tight. (And if you want a little more help getting ready, I wrote Advocacy: Your Other Full Time Job just for you.)
The Coffee Shop Cup
This is the cup that isn't just a drink. It's an appointment with yourself.
You all know how I feel about local coffee shops. I think they’re the long-missing “third space” in our communities - that space that isn’t home and isn’t work and where you can find social connections. Coffee shops are where I've had some of the most meaningful conversations of my life, closed my laptop after a hard day, and read a book with zero interruptions. In my consulting years, I facilitated a lot of rooms full of leaders, and here's a little secret: the real conversations almost never happened at the table. They happened at the coffee station during the break. Something about standing around with a cup in your hand makes people honest.
The coffee shop cup is the one I want more of. Maybe you do too.
The Cup Somebody Hands You
And then there's my favorite cup of all.
It's the one somebody else made for you. The friend who shows up with your order already in hand. The coworker who grabs you one without asking because they could tell it was going to be a day. The person who knows exactly how you take it.
That cup isn't really about coffee. It's someone saying I see you, I thought of you, I know you're tired. And in this season of life, when so many of us are carrying our kids, our jobs, our aging parents, and our own stuff all at once, being seen like that is literally everything.
My National Coffee Day Challenge
Today, grab your coffee. Out of whatever cup you've got. The chipped mug, the sideline tumbler, the fancy latte from your favorite local spot. Doesn't matter.
Then get one for someone else.
Your kid's teacher. The mom who looks like she's hanging by a thread at pickup. Your coworker. Your mama. Be the person who hands somebody the cup.
And then come tell me: what cup is carrying you through this chapter? I truly want to know.
Love you, mean it, friends.
