Solace in a Coffee Shop

And today, Starbucks is my contemplation destination.

And that's just the thing about life... We are all looking for a way to disappear from the feeling of being lost. We all need some sort of a blending hideaway, one that allows us to be out of our element and oxymoronically comforted at the same time. All so that we may figure out how to be just one glorifying step above the rest.  Yes, we are the generation of shiners. We want brightness and a beauty that is unable to be vanquished or suffer extinction. We want to hold our own and be able to brilliantly and gracefully hold the world on our thriving shoulders at the same time.  Still, there will be a moment when even you, require significant time with your own thoughts and are desperate to figure out this sometimes terrifyingly unpredictable life. And when you finally vanish into the coffee shop, surrounded by eyes preoccupied with quiet technology, the sounds of India Arie, and the ironically soothing taste of caffeine. You will notice yourself drowning in a sea of fellow lost and longing comrades. You will ask yourself what decision you will make this time. Are you a runaway? Are you a fighter? And isn't running away also considered a form of severe fighting in certain circumstance? Which circumstance is this?  Will you stay... stay predictable and potentially yet generically happy or will you run incessantly into the sweeping unknown in the search of... of something, just so that the question "What if I ran?" would no longer haunt your expanding imagination? Take a moment to breathe in your environment. Smell the coffee beans. Close your eyes. No one notices you here. Be content if just for a fleeting moment. And remind yourself to be brave. To be so incredibly brave. Nothing genuinely beautiful can happen by remaining stagnant.  Remind yourself that you are not alone. The women next to you adorned in her purple scarf and indulging in a romance novel- she just wants to disappear from the dread of her cubicle and the unnerving gaze of her boss. The older man in the  fogged glasses looking out the matching fogged and smeared window dreams of a time when he will no longer be alone and his family will be near. And the barista with the sad eyes and smile, she is dreaming and wishing as hard as she can for of her moment of glory to finally come to fruition. Humans are oxymorons. We are all lost, loving it, and looking for a way out. But we are runaways together, even if our thoughts are the only thing running. 

"Slow down you crazy child, you can't be everything you want to be before your time." 
Billy Joel