Steaming Black Coffee

The last blog post of the year…

I’ve inadvertently taken the month off, and in observance of my birthday on Friday and the general write-off this year month has been, I’m calling it a day after this one.

It started more emo than it is here, and it all came from the first line, when I was sipping on a cup of black coffee the other day and enjoying the simple pleasure.

Happy reading! And for those who have stuck by this blog from the beginning when posts came once a week, to now when they come once a month (2020, amirite?), thank you. Here’s to whatever the other blog posts, months and days will look like.

She found comfort in the steam from a hot cup of black coffee.

Though she didn’t actively seek it, she always ended up being alone. At the end of the night, at the end of the day. She hadn’t noticed, but loneliness had moved in with her, into her.

It began at her feet, making her walk away from any group of people at a party after the conversation was over. It stayed at her feet for a while and made her walk the other way from coworkers leaving the office, often walking around the block once to make sure she lost them before going to take the train. The loneliness would weigh her feet down and kept her a few paces behind a person she knew who walked ahead of her – the loneliness knew she hadn’t gotten to the voice yet.

The loneliness then moved up her back, keeping it turned away from everyone else. She could hear people talking and would join in even without being asked. The words would come out and the doubt would come in, and the loneliness fed on that and made her keep her back turned. With her feet secured and then her back, the loneliness would make her turn an about face after a few pleasantries exchanged at a friend’s get-together or a polite glance given at the handsome barista.

The loneliness saved her heart and her head for last. They were easy pray and to be savored as dessert. By then, she had stopped being invited, and colleagues kept their pleasantries to the office. With the loneliness firmly rooted inside her, though, she didn’t even notice. She welcomed the quiet and simplicity of her exterior as a welcome contrast to the chatter of her interior. She wanted nothing else besides what she already had, because she hadn’t noticed that the loneliness had taken everything.

It didn’t pain her to part with everything, though, to be reduced to nothing but her apartment, her clothes, her furniture, her knick-knacks. She started the day alone and she ended it alone, and she didn’t notice. Others noticed for her, told her they admired her bravery at going to dinner alone and traveling alone with a book, some puzzles or an adult coloring book. When she wondered if she should mind, if there was something wrong with her for not minding her own company, she looked for people who weren’t alone at the restaurant, or a couple who was laughing together at the bar, to compare. She felt happy for them. Happy that they enjoyed each other’s company, but she didn’t envy them.

When she did feel anything other than simple contentment at her arrangement, she felt wonder. She wondered what arrangements had been made for those people to laugh and joke and spend time together. She wondered what they talked about and if they ever ran out of topics of conversation. She wondered what it felt like to find that arrangement effortless. The loneliness inside her would dig its claws in deeper, reminding her that this was comfortable, familiar and expected. At the prompt, she would retract and leave the others to their own lives.

So she always enjoyed her black coffee alone, and as she watched the steam rise and disappear and absorbed the smell and felt the warmth of the mug on her hand and tasted the bitterness and heard herself say “Mmm,” she was comforted.