{"id":722,"date":"2019-01-07T16:54:13","date_gmt":"2019-01-07T21:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peggywbarnes.com\/?p=722"},"modified":"2019-01-07T16:54:13","modified_gmt":"2019-01-07T21:54:13","slug":"crying-in-starbucks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peggywbarnes.com\/?p=722","title":{"rendered":"Crying in Starbucks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Today is the second time I stood crying in a Starbucks.\u00a0 I just spent a wonderful weekend visiting my mother and it was time to leave. It was very early in the morning and I tiptoed in her room to kiss her goodbye as she slept.\u00a0 I hated to leave.\u00a0 I wanted the time together to never end.\u00a0 I ached for her aching heart.\u00a0 I knew she would wake up and have to get through another day, the best she can, without her mate of 74 years by her side. As we were driving away, I had already shed my inevitable tears and thought I was done, however, 40 minutes later, as I ordered my \u201ccoffee\u201d, (Grande skinny latte, 1 shot of espresso, 6 pumps of sugar free vanilla \u2013 essentially, glorified chocolate milk), the barista asked me if I had a good weekend.\u00a0 Tears stung my eyes and throat as I struggled to tell her,\u00a0 \u201cyes, the best.\u201d\u00a0 As I waited for my \u201ccoffee\u201d, holding my feelings in check, the kind barista said, \u201cis it the coffee taste you don\u2019t like\u201d, referring to my order containing very little coffee and a lot of sweet flavoring masking any coffee taste.\u00a0 I laughed through the tears.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t know she had given me a gift of kindness and laughter in the midst of sadness.<\/p>\n

The first time, I stood crying in Starbucks, was on the morning of October 30th<\/sup> when my father passed away in the early morning hours.\u00a0 Going through the process of death and not having slept for three nights, I knew I needed just to go out for a while and deal with some of the emotions I was having.\u00a0 For some reason, Starbucks seemed like the logical place to go.\u00a0 With a shaky voice, I ordered my \u201ccoffee\u201d then, awaiting my name to be called, the tears started to flow as I watched the people of Starbucks.\u00a0 No one knew my intense pain.\u00a0 No one knew what I had witnessed.\u00a0 No one knew I had tears rolling down my face as I held my complete despair tucked away. \u00a0No one looked my way.\u00a0 I felt almost invisible in a sea of people talking, laughing, going about their business.<\/p>\n

So why do I share all of this? \u00a0I have become painfully aware of people all around me who are keeping their feelings in check as they go about doing ordinary things like buying groceries, going to the bank, eating in a fast food restaurant and yes, ordering Starbucks.\u00a0 People are fighting hard things \u2013 grief, marriages in crisis, sick children, wayward children, health concerns, financial hardships, anxiety, depression, loneliness, abusive relationships, and numerous other battles.\u00a0 My grief and sadness have made me more tolerant and more empathetic to the people around me.<\/p>\n

One of my resolutions for 2019: look around and see if there is someone \u201ccrying in Starbucks\u201d and give them a smile, an acknowledgment, a feeling of hope as they are walking through their pain and burdens.\u00a0\u00a0 My hope is we can take our own burdens and use what we learn, on our own journey, to help others.\u00a0 In essence, I pray we can all learn how to do life better…….together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today is the second time I stood crying in a Starbucks.\u00a0 I just spent a wonderful weekend visiting my mother and it was time to leave. It was very early in the morning and I tiptoed in her room to kiss her goodbye as she slept.\u00a0 I hated to leave.\u00a0 I wanted the time together […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peggywbarnes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peggywbarnes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peggywbarnes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peggywbarnes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peggywbarnes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/peggywbarnes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peggywbarnes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peggywbarnes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peggywbarnes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}