day 15, to the one you miss most

Day 15. What you miss the most

to a small café in a small college town,

You are my first memory of college–a chai tea latte, before I was even sure I would attend the university. You were some of my last good memories from college–the semester I had to let go was the hardest.

When I was hired a few days before my first semester was to start–hired largely, it seemed, because the owner felt the need to protect me from something that would eat or destroy the tiny person I was–I felt like Jack. The other employees were giants–the college crowd I could never hope to be friends with, the ones that were painfully cool and perfectly casual about it. The ones that knew what they wanted, pushed hard toward their goals. The ones that actually became the coffee shop.

When I was hired, the owner told me I would grow into the place. I would fit right in. I would figure myself out. I couldn't imagine then how right he could be. At that time, he had collected a staff of people so diverse, each with their own passion and with an equal passion for serving customers the best coffee we could–knowing what each bean tasted like, how each regular liked their cappuccinos, how to get the espresso machine to hum instead of growl. I fell in love with everyone that came through the doors in the beginning, and I wanted to keep all of them. We would stay inside the doors, sipping from over-sized mugs, and we would be safe.

It is an understatement to say that my time behind that counter was my favorite job so far. The three and a half years gave me many of my best friends, many of my best memories, a reason to get up and enjoy the sunrise on Saturday and Sunday mornings–a place that felt more like home than I'd ever experienced outside of Wapakoneta, Ohio. But home isn't always happy, and family conflicts cut the deepest.

When things started to unravel–but if we're honest, the seams were stretching from the start–I wanted to run before things broke down. I didn't want to see the cancer in it's final stages, but I couldn't pull myself away. Each day was a new heartbreak, and the coffee was more bitter than sweet. The employees had the espresso machine screaming. The weekend crowds were thinning–moving on, finding Starbucks, seeing what was happening before most of us could accept it.

I became afraid of what I would find in the store before opening, before filling the bakery baskets with bagels and muffins, before the place woke up and smelled familiar–rising dough mixed with coffee and cucumber slices and the odd dog that would sit near its owner to snag bites of egg. I was afraid that one day, you wouldn't be there.

One of my pictures is still hanging in your dining room, folding at the edges and yellowing. I took the others with me when I left. I didn't want to be there when the doors closed. I cried that day, and I cried each time I walked back through those doors after.

Now, after a summer in the news with an uncertain future, you're still holding on. You're still bringing a crowd of vulnerable college students into some sense of a community. Somehow, this is almost more painful–to think that we can never get back to what we were, and that those there now can never know how golden it was for a time. I'm trying to let that go, realize that my time there is a memory and it is perfect for someone else–in the way that anything human can be perfect when we're a part of it.

So I suppose, in closing, all I can say is thank you. For my friends, for the tips that grew as I grew into my job, for the regulars, for my husband (who I met while standing behind the Plexiglass food prep counter), for the best times I've known and the best cappuccinos I've tasted.

Thanks to everyone that was there with me, at one point or another. Thanks for remembering it as much as I do.

Love and continued devotion,
Megan

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