Coffee with a Stranger

This afternoon, immediately after getting off of work, I went for my normal walk…. The one where I end up in a Starbucks, my home away from home. My happy indoor space. AND, as if coffee wasn’t enough of a reason to go, Starbucks is one of the only places I can also bring my dog in with me. Not only do they allow dogs, but they also happily hand over a Pup-Cup filled with whipped cream, all the while dishing out many-many compliments to Coco. Coco doesn’t care about the compliments, like me, she’s there for the to-go cup filled with yumminess. While I was waiting for my coffee, a woman started talking to me about Coco….and that was the start of what had to be an hour-long conversation. 

Though we’d both picked up our coffee, we continued to stand and talk. She was in flux. The past few years had dished out a lot of hardship, one after the other.  As we stood there, she talked and stories were flying out of her mouth, as if they needed to get out. Seeing that, I decided that I could delay the rest of my walk and let her talk. She spoke about who she was in her past and who she is now. From my point of view, I could see that she was an older woman, long since retired. She was neatly dressed in a fitted track jacket and jeans.  Her gray hair was in a precise short pixie haircut. She had two sets of diamond earrings in both of her ears and a very large diamond ring on her left hand. She was a full body speaker, the type of person (like myself) who seems to unconsciously use their whole body to accompany a conversation. Some people stop with their hands, but us full body speakers can at times really lean into a conversation. Throughout our conversation, she seemed to fluctuate from reeling herself in, to forgetting herself and letting her animated stories rapidly out. She also seemed to feel as if she needed to defend herself and her ability to laugh, even though she’s “going through it”. She said she appreciated that I had a sense of humor and relayed some experiences she had where others had scolded her for her laughter. 

Grief, trauma, pain, and life isn’t necessarily a linear path.  When our bodies need to release emotions, that energy release can take many differing forms, not just crying. In my experience, I’ve had emotional purges and energy releases with crying, yelling, beating the crap out of a pillow, jumping, tapping, saying fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck, and yes, even laughter. Just because a person can laugh, does not mean they are not in tremendous pain, both mental or physical. For example, my OB doctor didn’t think I was in enough pain during my natural childbirth because I was intermittently chipper. Joke was on him though, when shortly after that, he got called back into my room barely in time for the birth of my son. HA! 

It’s not just the opinions of others, sometimes this criticism can also come from the inside too. There are times when we might feel like we’re betraying our pain/grief/trauma if our emotions don’t stay in that screaming-into-the-void level of despair. I once sat in a funeral consultation room, where a new widow was making arrangements for her husband. Close friends and family (myself being one of them) were there to support her. Though there were plenty of tears of grief, at one point the mood took a turn and the tears being shed were because we were all laughing so hard. Someone in our group, through spit-laughter, was commenting about how inappropriate we were being, which made us all laugh even harder. Does this mean we were all horrible and callous? No, not all of us. Just kidding, none of us were. Haha. She had loved her husband tremendously and missed him very much. We all did. In that small room, I’ve no doubt that the energy shift was still an intense energy purge. Her mourning and pain was no less than anyone else’s, even if her energy release took the form of laughter. 

So, when this stranger was telling me that she was in pain and wasn’t trying to be offensive with her laughing, I believed her. Remembering my past experiences, it was with confidence that I told her that we all process trauma and grief in different ways and some people forget that. Some people think that if you’re not doing it the way they do it, you’re not in pain….. And that simply isn’t true. At that point I invited her to sit outside with me, where we could talk some more. I never did get her name. Mostly, I just listened to her stories. I think sometimes telling our stories can be a bit of an energy release, too. Sometimes we need to release our stories out into the world, not so that someone can fix us or whatever, but because there is a need for the stories and the struggles to be witnessed and acknowledged. Sometimes people need to be seen. This stranger spoke of her struggles, but also of the fight she has in her. I have no doubt, after hearing what she’d been through, that she is indeed a fighter. When we got up to leave, still never having exchanged names, she took my hand in a very tight handshake and thanked me. Though we’d talked for almost an hour, that was the only time I saw tears in her eyes. I felt very touched that the Universe put us both in each other’s path. I felt very honored that she felt comfortable enough with me to let her stories out to be witnessed.