I went to a coffee shop after work the other day. I did this for three reasons- 1. I wanted some inspiration for this blog post. 2. I wanted a lil treat (I got a hot mocha made with oat milk. We can talk about the hypocrisy of that at another time.) 3. I had some work to do and knew that if I went home, it would not get done.

When I go home after work, all of my productivity gets left behind. Even when I know I have some Very Important Things to do, I can’t seem to find the motivation to get them done at my apartment. This might partially be due to the fact that I don’t even have a desk at school. When you have to pack up your whole life to move into a box of a bedroom you will call home for 7 months, your priority isn’t always “I need a desk in here.” So, I left my fancy Target desk at home, collecting dust until Summer break. 

When my to-do list feels neverending, I pack up my hot pink bookbag, emotional support water bottle, and trusty airpods, and head off to a coffee shop. There’s something about being in public that forces me to be productive. I get too embarrassed at the thought of all these strangers judging me for playing Candy Crush while my laptop sits opened but untouched. The anxiety that everyone is secretly making fun of me is my fuel. I tried to be a library person, but it’s just too dang quiet. I don’t like feeling that every breath I take and keyboard click I make is being heard by a dozen other people. Plus, when I work at a cafe I get to treat myself to my usually second highly caffeinated beverage of the day. 

I make coffee at home most mornings. I resisted this lifestyle for a while- $7 lattes taste way better than my regular ole coffee pot brew. But unfortunately, buying yourself a yum bev every morning before work isn’t always realistic. I don’t necessarily want to leave my house 15 minutes early to go wait in a drive thru, or even worse, get out of my car and physically enter a coffee shop. But, I used to. 

The summer I was 17, I got my first car and my first job. I would drive the long way to work so I could stop at the only coffee shop in town. Back then, that was my favorite place to go. Not because it was good. It wasn’t. But it was there, and that’s all that mattered. This coffee shop had a punch card system. Buy 10 get one free or something like that. By the time my seasonal job ended, I had 6 free coffee punch cards. That’s 60 drinks I bought in a matter of like 3 months. I did the math once of how much money I had spent on just coffee. It was scary. 

Now don’t get me wrong, I still prefer to buy a coffee from a barista over making them at home. But now that I am kind of a real adult, I am trying to be more responsible. So I carry a reusable coffee tumbler filled with a mediocre bev with me into the office every morning. And then I buy a second coffee afterwards. Now that I am saying this out loud (well typing in quiet), maybe I am not being a responsible adult after all. Oh well. I still think I deserve the lil treats.