I am thinking about coffee.
There are a few different coffee personas: those who take it black and genuinely need the caffeine to do anything, those who don’t really like it unless it is a Dunkin coffee with vanilla syrup, cream, sugar and extra cream, those who get it for the aesthetic, and those who get it for the experience. I am sure there are many other reasons why people get coffee, those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.
For me, coffee happened it steps:
- Hated coffee
- Went to college and wished I liked coffee because I thought it was “cool”
- Started drinking Dunkin sugar filled coffee
- Got sick of it
- Graduated to Starbucks and got their iced vanilla coffee
- Got addicted to getting Starbucks
- Enjoy coffee but not as much, kind of over the “coolness” of it
- Started going and getting coffee just for the drive
Let’s focus on #8: “getting coffee just for the drive”
Moving to Raleigh on my own not knowing anyone or knowing where anything is was scary. I didn’t know where to get the best cheap Mexican food, the best take out hibachi, the best hole in the wall pizza place, the best local coffee shop. But Starbucks is a chain, they are consistent. I knew I could count on them for the same cup of coffee I got in college and at home. I will admit I go there a lot, probably more than my wallet wants me too, but it is comforting. I know how to get to the nearest Starbucks without a GPS. I know exactly what to order. I know how to get home. Going to get coffee is now about the drive. Something familiar within the unfamiliar. Something I can count on to be there and a reason to get out of the apartment.
Those 5 minutes it takes to get there and the 5 minutes it takes to get back make me feel like I belong here. Like I know exactly what I am doing even when after those 10 minutes, I will go back to having no idea what I am doing.