Lessons from b Espresso Bar

There's this little coffee shop I sit at sometimes when I visit Toronto. I don't particularly like it, but it's pretty central to where John tends to work and I just so happened to spend a lot of time here throughout University.

This coffee shop is really nothing special: the food is overpriced, the drinks are mediocre at best, and the design layout is created to encourage solitude.

I mean really, the tables are one-sided to encourage - no, ensure -  that you sit by yourself

But this place has taught me a lot about myself over the years. When I was 19, I would come here with the intention of looking over notes or writing essays. But instead I'd spend my time watching all of the interactions going on: twenty-and-thirty-somethings with non prescription Gucci eyeglasses and gorgeous shoes engaged in impressively casual but expensive business meetings, sipping lattes over design talk and considering branding strategies for some of Canada's big time companies. At the time, I'll be honest, these people I watched were living my dream. My dream to see success, to steep creative strategy, to wear those shoes. When I was 19, coffee time at b Espresso Bar was time for planning, for wanting.

And then the years went by. And I graduated. And I became comfortable with the fact that you can be an adult and not really enjoy coffee. And I got pregnant. And, one fall day, I came back to b Espresso Bar. This time when I looked around, all I saw was my own failure. This time, I was watching my peers be the ones standing around the solitude table, sipping a double Americano with an extra shot of espresso, earning more money working for the big leagues than I was freelancing and chilling out in the countryside(ish) town I live in. I remember wondering if I had gotten stuck, if I made the family-turn too soon, if I'd ever be back again and if possibilities of wearing those shoes would ever truly be mine. I looked around b Espresso Bar and I saw coffee stains of insufficiency in my life.

But now I'm back. Babe in arms. I look around and I see a lot of people missing out. I notice wearied workers. I don't care about their shoes. I see a lot of effort being given to things that, at this time, I truly do not care for. I look around b Espresso Bar and I feel contentment in my own life. Some little voice inside feels pity for that girl doing that job interview and the way she has to hear those dreaded words "we'll be in touch" (code for "no, we won't"). There's an overwhelming sense of peace for the turn my life has taken.
 
Right now, looking at my life, I do see success. Not the kind I envisioned when I was 19, but success nonetheless. Being such a young mom has its challenges, sure, but missing out on a career is not one of them for me. That ship has not sailed: I have plenty of time to be with my family and, when opportunity strikes, to engage in a career, too. But when I do, I'll have my priorities in check and a family I've helped to raise. I get to skip the journey so many new graduates endure - you know, the one where you search desperately to find yourself - and just be myself on the way.

So thanks, b Espresso Bar, for clearing that up.