"Everything will be okay."

There are many days when I find myself feeling alone in the world. The creation of social media has left many of us isolated, even in the most social of situations. I sit here, working at a table in a café area of a big retail store. It’s not necessarily a place to hang out, and that’s indicated by the apparent lack of people who stick around. Seemingly, the appeal of this area is to get a coffee to accompany you in your shopping, or a final treat for getting a day's worth of errands completed. Strangely, it feels antithetical to the ideal coffee shop environment one might imagine. There aren’t many human interactions, aside from the occasional company-mandated greeting from the barista. As a kid, I had this ideal vision of what a coffee shop should be, a place where bonds are made, where true social experiences are had. In reality, the world we’ve created fails to foster this environment at best, and at worst, can outright inhibit this environment.

Yet, despite it looking nothing like Central Perk, the coffee shop from the show F.R.I.E.N.D.S, it still offers an experience that is individually niche and charming. The sole working barista attempts to hide their stress, being mostly successful at it. A line quickly develops, composed of tired parents with their children, teenagers who just got paid, and eager shoppers, looking for a sweet treat to liven up their errands run. Mumblings of discontent can be heard, likely at the speed, or lack thereof, of the barista working alone. Regardless of complaints, the barista maintains their composure, ensuring that they are doing the best they possibly could. Once the line dies, they return to doing mundane cleaning tasks, in an attempt to prepare the store for closing. 

Most don’t stay for long, and those who do often sit with a friend to gain their bearings before heading off a little while later. However, there exists a small minority of those who sit alone, enjoying their drink in solitude, silently accompanied only by those who exist around them. Many would pay them no mind, but I find them both relatable and intriguing. It’s easy to be caught up in the chaos of the world around us, in the constant movement we see no matter where we look. Taking a moment to simply exist, not necessarily for one particular reason, but just to be a part of the environment, it’s strangely cathartic. 

There exists a concept, mostly to describe the behavior of autistic children, called “parallel play.” It’s this idea of doing something in the presence of someone else, but not directly engaging with the other person. Doing individual tasks with the accompaniment of someone else. In a way, I believe this is the type of thing that those who sit in coffee shops to exist are engaging in. There’s a strange comfort in knowing that someone else around you is just trying to find their way in the world. Unfortunately, these moments of comfort are fleeting, lasting only as long as one can spare. As we grow older, those moments become less frequent, and the time we can spare becomes smaller and smaller until we almost forget to breathe. By attempting to preserve these small moments of comfort and shared presence, it keeps us sane. Life is hectic, but it doesn’t have to always be that way. Sometimes, even in the most unlikely places, you can take a breath, knowing that someone else near you is doing the same.