Yesterday, I drove my youngest son to an urban area about 45 minutes away from our home, for his summer internship. He had to be there before 7 a.m. Since, this isn’t something that I do often at all, it was an interesting, eye-opening adventure. Before 11 a.m., I had hung out at a coffee shop, I had breakfast and then later a snack, and I had shopped in four different stores, in three different locations, including doing a bagful of returns. I literally texted my friends that I wish that I could become a morning person for this very reason. The efficiency was unreal because there were no lines in the stores, and no crowded streets, nor were there overrun parking lots. But alas, the downside of this was that I was exhausted by 6 p.m. on my beloved Friday. And truthfully, sleeping in this morning was 110 times more delicious than yesterday’s efficiency rating. Bummer.
Speaking of coffee, yesterday, the only coffee shop which was open that early, near to where I dropped my son off, was also a Kava bar. I initially strolled up to the bar and asked for my usual: black coffee and some water. I sat down at the bar next to several people, all at least half of my age. They all seemed to know each other, being locals from the neighborhood. Let’s just say that me, a 51 year old, who is not at all used to way early mornings, bleary eyed, who could easily be mistaken for a touchy “Karen” woman (on a bad day), in my coastal grandma style clothes, did not necessarily blend in with my youthful, energized, tattooed, pierced, urban chic, clearly from the local neighborhood cohorts at the counter. Not long into guzzling my first cup of coffee, someone rang a bell, and all of the people in the shop, picked up these little silver shells, sucked down the drink inside of these shells, and yelled, “Bula!” (which is a Fijian word offering good tidings) And that’s when my FOMO set in deeply. “I want one of those. I want to do that,” I said to the nice girl behind the counter named Scarlett, who had earlier told me that she was also a nursing student besides working in the coffee bar, and to whom I had already given a motherly lecture about not spreading herself too thin and keeping her stress levels to a minimum because nursing school is hard!!
And that’s when I noticed it happening, a phenomenon that is starting to happen to me more and more these days. I’ve become that cute, novelty, older, suburban lady who amuses her youngers by trying out “their stuff, on their turf”. “Okay,” sweet Scarlett said, with a kind, patient, nurse-type demeanor already. “We’re going to start you out with a low-tide (half a cup). Your tongue might get a little numb and you will probably feel a little relaxed. The Kava is going to taste a little bitter.”
“Omg!” I turned to the artistic looking young man on the side of me, who was wearing large gauges in his ears and donning fluorescent orange eye glasses. “Am I still going to be able to drive?” The locals all got some chuckles about that question. “You’ll be fine. It’s not a glass of wine,” he stated, drinking down his second full-tide of Kava. “But ma’am, please make sure that you drink a lot of water today, okay?” he said with a hint of protectiveness that warmed my heart.
The only effect that my little half-shell of Kava had on me was a diuretic one. Thankfully, none of the bathrooms in any of the stores which I perused after leaving the coffee shop were crowded either. But honestly, that’s a lie about the Kava experience, and it having little effect on me. I used to feel a little indignant, when I first realized that I wasn’t exactly blending in, with the younger crowds anymore. For decades of my adult life, I honestly felt like I had just graduated from college. When my own kids started towering over me, I started to get the clues that I had graduated from my own youthfulness. The indignance that I felt at first, is starting to morph into more of an acceptance, and at times when I feel a younger person’s respect for me, and amusement of me, and a protectiveness surrounding me, I even feel grateful. I realize that I have reached an age, when my younger counterparts have a lot to show me and to teach me, too, if I am willing to come at things with open mindedness. I am invested in hopefulness for the future of our young people. I am a mother of four of them. I believe that if we try to understand each other, instead of trying to dominate each other, there is an ability for all of us to grow together, and to create an amazing society, the likes which we have never seen before.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.