Happy Anniversary Blend

When I go grocery shopping I usually just buy a bag of ground Starbucks or Caribou coffee, but this last Sunday, while shopping, none of them seemed that wonderful, and then I remembered that I saw that Anniversary Blend was out, the last time I was out for a coffee with a friend. Anniversary Blend is one of Starbuck’s special coffees, that they only sell for a short while in the fall. I know nearly all the Starbucks coffees because for a year I worked at a Starbucks, first as a Barista (fancy name for coffee maker) and then as a shift supervisor. I get a lump in my throat remembering, as this was not a happy year for me.

It was one of the physically hardest jobs I’d ever had, as well as I felt embarrassed, having gone from working in sales & marketing at a prestigious conference center to selling coffee off of interstate 35W in a strip mall. The hours I had to work were really hard on me and my family. It was right around the time that Barbara Ehrenerich’s book, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America came out, and she was telling my story. I was resentful that an already well-off, published writer was now getting money and fame from telling this story. It’s an important story, and I am honestly glad that it is being told, but it’s difficult to read about someone living your sorry life, but hey, not really, because they get to go home to their cushy life after living your life for a while for a book. I ended up with carpal tunnel in both wrists on that job. It was then that I knew I had to find a way to leave Owatonna, I had to find a different way to live.

So, last night on my way to my second job, I stopped at a Starbucks and bought a bag of this wonderful coffee, and I can smell it now, as I write. Good coffee. Anniversary Blend, I looked at the calendar and it is September 27, and I remember, 31 years ago today I participated in a marriage ceremony, I was the bride. I had hoped for lots of anniversaries, I had hoped for a long time to be with Steve, but the Universe and the two of us said, “No.” It was a beautiful day, sunny, breezy, with the leaves starting to turn. We loved each other, and that was enough for that day, and for nearly 15 years after. Life only lets you live in a certain place for a certain amount of time, and then you have to do the work.

The work is different for each of us, but you gotta do it, or you end up hating yourself and other people. It really is like the metaphor of the butterfly struggling to get out of the cocoon, you just can’t live there too long, and breaking out of the shell is hard, hard work, but you get out and you see that not only is the blue sky and the wind and the trees turning color still there, but this time you also get to spread your wings and fly through it all. I had no idea how my life would turn out when I chose to be single again, just like I had no idea what would happen the day I married Steve. Life is a series of events and choices, and getting to choose lets us create the kind of lives we hope to have. We can use our imaginations to shape our futures. I drink a cup of coffee to that. Happy Anniversary Blend baby, got you on my mind.