why it doesnt matter whats in the glass

“He doesn’t love you.”

“Shocker.”

“Then why do you bother?”

She spun around on the stool and shrugged her shoulders. Her dispassionate eyes suited her apathetic tone. “Maybe I just do.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She looked down the bar at an old man hunkered over a whiskey sour, staring hopelessly into it like he was search for something. “It’s better than nothing, that’s what it’s supposed to mean.”

“But it isn’t significant.”

“But it isn’t nothing.”

She grabbed her messenger bag and dropped a couple bills next to an empty glass, looking back down at it. “You know why that glass is empty?”

“Because it’s not half full.”

“Exactly. Something isn’t empty or half-full because it’s missing something. It’s that way because you drank it, which is better than watching it sit there staring back at you. It doesn’t matter what it’s half of if you never drink it.”

“I see.”

“No you don’t.” She said, grabbing a tattered brown jacket. “But maybe someday you will.”

Then she sauntered freely out of the bar. But that lack of weight on her shoulders was also because she had nothing to weigh her down. I didn’t know whether to pity her or applaud her.