"The Confidence Coffee."
(the preface, the story, the point... and espresso's role in each)
the confident me visits in bursts.
she materializes in the steam wafting from a coffee cup, trading her quiet presence for a brisk stride.
she steals my words in conversations with teachers and leaders, crafting my rambling speech into a concise thought.
she’s behind a coffee bar, talking to anyone and everyone - even the coworker who never thought she’d last - while flying through drinks.
she cracks her windows while driving, turning the music up a tad bit louder and laughing a little more at those taking the commute too seriously around her.
adjectives spill into her words, creating stories and twisting visuals instead of stumbling, shattering blocks.
confident me presses the heels of her red boots to the pavement with clarity, raises her chin in a wave instead of lowering it when someone walks by.
her legs become steady and sure, her breathing is even, her hands fluidly gesture, her lips quirk into real smiles, her eyes are bright, her hair is big, the wheels of her mind are turning.
she is not me. but she IS me. to be her for a second is to feel like I’m free from all the strings securing my mouth shut, the rust grinding my wheels to a halt.
when I find her, I know it won’t be long til I feel lost once again. I hold tight, being confident me for a bit, then bite a goodbye. til next time.
“The Confident Me” by…. Me. Era 2020.
The preface:
Very early in life, I learned to navigate areas of high anxiety by looking for little happy things.
See, I was the kid that stressed and planned how I was going to carry everything into the house with 30 minutes still left in the car ride. Who double-triple-checked that it was actually crazy hair day before walking into the school - if we made it that far. I couldn’t order at restaurants. I couldn’t make eye contact with strangers. Anxiety sat with me in every interaction I had with my world, and thus formed my foundation.
Some of my fondest memories are of finding the little happy things that mitigated those moments:
The caramel frappuccino (with extra drizzle) that rewarded tiny me with whip cream dotting my nose for trauma-dumping in therapy sessions.
The frozen dirty chai I sipped on as I walked into my very first externship day at my now workplace.
Each and every sugary, warm, cold, frozen, or fruity drink I grabbed with grief gift cards when I returned to work after losing my dad.
This phenomenon - that a fun coffee in hand could somehow alter my mindset into one that can handle anything life throws my way - has since been amicably nicknamed my “confidence coffee.”
Hell, my coworkers, partner, family, and friends will be the first to tell you that I never finish more than half of whatever drink I have in hand. My fatal flaw! But what I wish to tell everyone, without sounding insanely anthropomorphizing, is that the drink I carry in hand is worth the money if only for the mental aspect it brings me.
One overpriced cup of liquid could, somehow, be the only thing keeping me afloat on a random Tuesday.
See - my confidence coffee. Or, on days where even this can’t bring me to two steady feet, I call it my crutch coffee.
The Story:
Tuesday, March 12th. The sun hasn’t even come up yet. It’s definitely a crutch coffee kind of day. The cup is perched next to me as I drive, and I will the whip cream to bring me the same peace it usually brings. I park and make the walk up to my early morning class; my bad hip and crutch coffee accompany me with ever-present nagging pain when both the weather and my thoughts grow cloudy.
I nurse my coffee, now growing lukewarm, as I mull over the content broadcasted big over the auditorium. Attachment styles. What causes people to become attached to others, and what causes unhealthy attachments? I am a storm cloud in the back row, poking a plastic cup lid. What causes… detachment?
What causes one to stare out the window at the shadow of their own car, starkly 70 mph alone, on the barricades lining the highway?
Not to wail to the blog AGAIN, but this semester has been one of constant dark days. The lowest exam score I have ever earned stared back at me from my phone screen as I parked my car in utter defeat last night. An eight hour clinic day, two hour evening class, and 40 minute drive home made every bone in my body feel wilted. I spent the entire drive detached from it all, detached from even the fear of failing a class for the first time in my life. It all bled into this morning.
Creamy tan liquid, now cold as my hands seem to always be, lurches over my wrist when I go to toss the cup into the nearest trash can on the way out of morning class. Piece of shit didn’t work this time, anyway, I think dismally. Still, I stop just short of doing so; holding on to hope that, maybe, it’ll work its magic.. Rain has crept over campus, and my peers pull their hoodies up and bustle along to get out of it.
I step out. I give my cheeks upward to the rain. I’m not made of sugar - a phrase my mind brings from the depths of my childhood memories. Present mind tags on, I will not dissolve simply by standing still in the storm. The drops settle on my cheeks, and they feel like tears, but in a better way than last night. In a grounding way.
The colors of campus come to life with the moisture, and I observe hugs and cheers and little happy beauties of mundane life as I make my way back to my car. The confidence coffee resumes its spot next to me as I make my way to work, and even hours old, warms my soul from the building blocks of my mind to the tips of my ears. I can see people smile at me from behind steering wheels as they let me merge.
It is on this drive that I start to think… A confidence coffee is not bound to the material thing itself. What it really is, is allowing myself to romanticize the little things that make each hard day a bit more liveable.
The Point:
I guess what I wanted to put out into the world with this ramble… is that your confidence coffee can be any little happy thing that makes you feel attached to - and present in, and capable of enthusiastically meeting - your world.
Look for it! Look for the raindrops on your cheeks, or the warm greeting from your coworkers, or the stranger letting their dachshund puppy run out in the field by the post office (this one, the other day, earned an obligatory “I see you, daddio”).
My thought is that life doesn’t have to send you a miracle to keep you going - these little flickers are enough.
Be diligent - even on your most detached days - in maintaining a heart that allows itself to see the little happy things. I think these are what truly keep us going, whether we are aware of them or not.
So, to echo 2020 me, and to get myself through the final mile of the semester from Hell: Confident me materializes wherever I need her to be, in whatever little happy thing I can spot her in.