Starbucks: It's Okay to Be

I've been to Starbucks more in the last month than I have my whole life.

Me... in a Starbucks. Consuming their coffee. 

Spending a God awful amount of money, on a drink that take three years to order.

Throwing away their plastic cups. 

Listening to their sometimes okay, sometimes what the hell, music.

Almost dying from the taste and enormous amounts of sugar within this black tar. every. single. time. 

But.

There's always a but...

Each and every time I come in here, something profound happens.

Right before. During. Or right after.

I hate it.

I love it.

I love to hate it.

My community driven, homegrown, grassroots, fair trade, everyone knows your name... and your life story... coffee shop, just doesn't always work for others "schedules."

Or maybe I just don't want to be known today while I respond to e-mails. 

Maybe the constant "we are best friends with everyone in here" mentality is actually more overwhelming for my meeting... and the American way of faster, no eye contact, consume garbage and repeat method really is something I could consider. 

I mean come on... who has the time to ask what the cute and personal wifi password is for each and every coffee shop that promotes ending sex slavery and hiring boys from the neighborhood to learn business skills and a self sustaining trade that will never die as long as hipsters and sleepy moms exist?!

If you drink Starbucks each and every day, I am not here to attack you.
Consider this a personal opinion, not a judge of character.

I actually envy the mugs for each state you can buy... and those little cups at the end of the summer season, so bright and cheery? I adore those!
Until I turn it around to look at that price, and of course, the green lady herself... the symbol of all things Starbucks.

Anyway... back to the profound things that are happening around this place.

The conversations.

The relationships.

The meetings.

The questions being asked of me, and by me.

I remember things here.

I dream here.

People share things with me here that they may not somewhere else.

I almost forget how much I don't fit in... do fit in, because I am sure that what is happening in those moments, or hours, is something that shouldn't end until it absolutely has to.

I remember him outside of a Starbucks last summer.

He looked like a superhero.

My superhero.

A superhero that had been beaten with his own kryptonite. 

We were both wrong about what happened next.

It still tastes bitter, like the stagnant coffee in the trash cans on the sidewalk,
days after being thrown out.

I remember middle and high school meet ups with my people, where we talked about our dreams and boys that shouldn't talk to our friends and how the Church was really lame most of the time.

We knew back then that 4 walls didn't make Jesus love us more or less.

But we had to wait for the grown ups to catch on...

Still waiting.

I remember interviews, letters written, emails that could change the future, all within a internationally known coffee chain.

I'm thankful.

This coffee is still gross.

But I'm willing to live in both worlds.

I have been living in both worlds.
I remember both worlds here.
I remember real things in this pre-packaged, plastic, bad tasting environment.
And I don't know why.
But I'm unsettled by it just enough to think about it out loud.
To ask myself
 how in the world I got here,
and how it's okay to
be.