Coffee With Friend
By Z Zoccolante
Last night a friend passed through town and purposely laid over her flight to have a night with me. We have to walk slow, she said as I parked around the corner from my favorite coffee shop, I might have a broken toe.
What, I asked? Should we check it?
Nah, it’ll be fine, she said as we strolled slowly down the sidewalk.
We sip lattes and discuss family, kids, relationships, birthdays and getting older, travel and other life stuff.
We catch the most beautiful sunset over the ocean, as the pier is lite up with Christmas tree lights and the December chill creeps in the air.
I love this weather, she says, in her long sleeve shirt as I bundle in my winter coat.
I drink a lychee martini that reminds me of home and how my brother and I used to dress all in black and slip on nose muffling shoes so we could steal lychee from the grumpy neighbor’s tree next door. I still remember shirtfulls of the red spikey skins and the way they slid away from the sweet, fat translucent flesh of the fruit inside.
It feels like home to have old friends, the friends that knew you through different incarnations of yourself. Don’t get me wrong, new friends are amazing too, but the old ones feel like you are coming back to one of your favorite books and the characters don’t need to be explained, the backstory is already a part of your world. They know you. And they can call you on your crap.
We dip homemade gnocchi into homemade alfredo sauce and it feels like a delicacy. At the end of my rant about life and her calling me on all my shit, I tell her. The truth is I don’t really know what I’m doing sometimes, I’m just trying to figure out a whole new life and playing trial and error. I’m doing new things and they have pros and cons, but overall, I feel good most of the time.
We are all just figuring it out, which is perfectly acceptable. As we drive she tells me that if we only saw ourselves as half as amazing as we see our best friends it would be a game changer.
And it’s true. There are so many things in the world that try to get us to believe that we are not enough or not deserving. I stopped going on social medial as much because I’ve put parts of my creativity on the backburner right now for other things and yet I miss them. She rattles off the things that I’ve done and been in my life in the last two years, the ways I’ve grown, the person I am.
And I think, huh . . . isn’t it interesting how we often forget how others see us, how amazing we truly are and can be.
So this is my reminder for us all. As the Christmas unfolds take a few moments to think about this past year. What have you accomplished? How have you grown? What are your dreams and desires and loves? Who are you being in the world even when you are sitting quietly and doing nothing? Is that someone you like?
If you have a hard time with those questions ask a close friend to help you. Often, we are so close to ourselves that we can have blind spots, or brush over great accomplishments as though they are a shrug when they really are big things. How have your friends watched you grow this past year?
These brief meetings, with one of my closest friends in the world, remind me of my magic and that being truly seen and acknowledged by someone is a powerful gift.
Give that to yourself, and give that to others.
Forward Locomotion.
With Love,
Z :)
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