The Coffee House

That little coffee shop was built on a lifelong dream of a man who wanted to own a business that would support his husband and son.

It was small, but cozy, and always warm, which was sometimes good and sometimes bad.

Almost every square foot of it was filled with mismatched furniture with worn down seats from guests preparing for their day with a morning coffee, winding down with a late-afternoon coffee, or meeting up with friends to catch up over a beverage and a snack.

Every inch of the walls were covered with art from local artists and photographers.

The owner was a just as eclectic as the atmosphere. The kids that worked there would joke that he had a menstrual cycle. Some days he was chipper and chatty, others he was testy and terse and he didn’t even try to hide it from the customers. He didn’t have to.

One time, a customer came in asking for a full breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast (which the place did not serve) and not wanting to dissatisfy the customer, he cracked eggs onto the hot panini maker and executed the full breakfast on the spot.

The guests were characters too. Each with their own story. People fell in love there. People fell out of love there. Exes uncomfortably ran into each other there. People were introduced to each other there. Friends got closer there. People argued about politics there. And when that stuff didn’t happen there, it was at least talked about there.

Something about the place loosened lips and cultivated every emotion and dramatic scenario that would not normally happen outside the walls that were giddy with the secrets of all who convened there.

I witnessed all of that and was also the subject of all of it.

People (me) would drive by, deciding if they wanted to go in depending on whose cars were parked there, cursing the uncomfortable situation when they would walk in and realize that someone they didn’t want to see must have come in somebody else’s car. I would hope that the boy I liked would be there and not be there at the same time, not sure of which I actually wanted.

Some days I would be too anxious to want to go. Other days I had the perfect amount of confidence to sit and chat with my friends, not worried about who could walk in.

I gave in and took a handful of the imaginary popcorn my guy friends were chomping while enjoying the show when a girl who once dated the boy behind the counter (who now liked me) came in.

I heard secrets from people I barely knew there.

I felt powerful when an ex thing didn’t realize I was in there until several minutes after I arrived and got visibly uncomfortable while I kept my cool.

I made a fool of myself there, but I also made great impressions there.

A boy saw me for the first time there and decided that I was the girl he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

For me that little coffee shop brought me a mess of drama and anxiety and hostility and love triangles all sorts of bad feelings, but it also brought me my entire future.

My whole future was determined by this one man who opened the coffee shop, who I’m sure wouldn’t even recognize me if I walked by him on the street. I’m sure others could say the same.

I hope the man who started that little coffee shop realized that it wasn’t all for nothing – that even though his dream ultimately failed, it spawned the dreams of several others, built relationships, built individuals, taught lessons, inspired hours of valuable conversation and became a lifelong memory for the many people who at one point or another considered it home, or something like it.