TheBanyanTree: Coffee Shop Thoughts

[Maria Gibson]

Sometimes I feel incredibly lonely and don't know what to do about it.  
Right about then it was accompanied by a nervous anxiety that I couldn't 
quite grasp.  I don't know where it comes from or how to process it.  
The physical aspects of the nervous tension may have had something to do 
with a large dark roast coffee with five shots of espresso.  It 
heightened what I was already struggling with.

Thinking I had to leave, I didn't know what I should feel was the right 
destination.  I was just sad, lonely and anxious; leaving as soon as I 
was uncomfortably aware of it would have left me aimless.  Had I gotten 
in my car at that exact moment, left the parking lot and approached the 
stoplight, I wouldn't have known which way to turn.  Should I turn right 
toward an unmet meeting?  I'd have been unsure of where exactly to go 
and would have felt more and more abandoned and rejected.  With each 
rotation of the tires, I'd have known less and less until I became 
paralyzed with indecision.

Should I turn left toward home and meatloaf?  I'd have felt smothered 
and lonelier than ever in my crowd of three at home, an emotion I have 
been desperately trying to hide from.  Each rotation of the tires would 
have taken me closer to who I have always been, that person I no longer 
know how to be and from whom I cannot escape.

I eventually left the coffee shop.

Maria