An Ode to Armistice

Everyone has that one coffee shop, that they stumbled upon by accident entirely, that has stuck with them. In my time here in Seattle, that has been Armistice Coffee Roasters in Roosevelt.

The word armistice itself is interesting, meaning “agreement” between two parties. In the context of my use and misuse of this cafe, a similar unspoken pact has settled into place — I will, on a regular basis, buy a latte the size of my face, slurp it down over a vacant period of several hours, while attacking Calculus problems with a type of determination that only caffeine can induce. I will travel the lengths of the menu each time, just to settle on the same drink that I’ve grown accustomed to — a warm eight-ounce latte with lavender syrup, frothy with oat milk.

It’s the same place that your roommate will urge you to go to, after learning that you’d spent the entire day in your pajamas in your stuffy shared apartment, eating various snacks and staring at the tv with some hollowness spreading through your chest.

It’s days like this that I’m grateful for having a roommate, for having someone who checks up on me and makes sure I’m alive, that I’ve eaten, that I’m doing somewhat okay.

Go to that cafe, she said, that you always go to. Maybe you’ll feel better, maybe you won’t but it’s a lot better than sitting here.

She’s right. I did feel better. More alive, with the impending debt of a seven-dollar latte, a blight on my bank account statement, as I worked late into the night when wine glasses replaced the coffee cups in my vicinity, as the sun disappeared, as the street lights roused from their slumber.

But that’s the magic of Armistice — it was built for night owls like me. During the day, it’s a sleek coffee shop, with bags of fake coffee beans adorning the walkways as decoration, with urban lighting and dark walls. And at night, it becomes a bar, its racks of impressive alcohol highlighting the type of festivities that take place at night.

It’s almost seductive.

And on the corner of the espresso counter, lays an assortment of oddities that define the beauty of this place — a thin bag of pre-ground coffee leaning on a wine bottle for support, married by a circle of shot glasses that become candles when a wickered wax cube is placed inside.

I keep coming back here, picking that same seat by one of four outlets in this entire cafe (that’s right, I counted), picking the same drink that I always get.

It’s that sense of familiarity that keeps me grounded, keeps me going. Change is hard, and it’s inevitable when you’re in college when you’re surrounded by a harem of people rotating in and out of your life. My first quarter here, this is something I struggled with.

I’d found what I thought to be a great group of girls, an apartment of neighbors that lived just two floors below me. It took less than five seconds for me to be at their doorstep, and even less than that for them to scream my name in unison, in excitement, and it would begin just like that.

I met a boy today, one of them would say.

How was your day?

I got catcalled today.

Did you hear about Saturday night? What are you wearing?

I made pasta! Grab a plate, babe.

And within seconds, I would be seated on their couch with a plastic cup full of syrupy-sweet wine, a plate of overcooked noodles covered in storebought sauce. And we would, talk, laugh, scream, and then repeat because we are five young girls with clear skin and big aspirations living in fucking Seattle, a short elevator ride from seeing the whole skyline, falling in love with it over and over again. Because we live in fucking Seattle, and we are fucking young, and we are so ready.

You go to parties together, get ready in the same bathroom mirror, fawn over each other's outfits because that’s what girls do. You make plans for the future, knowing full well that you will all fail to follow up on it. But that’s okay, because this is college, and the possibilities are endless, the people are so different.

Change is so crazy.

Because within a span of a few months, you will go from being invited to their apartment almost daily to being kicked out while drunk out of your mind. You will be made to feel little, like your feelings don’t matter, as if you’re crazy for feeling like you haven’t seen your friends in so long.

But we’re roommates, they will complain, of course, we’ll hang out more, we live together.

That’s not the point, you will try and say, but to no avail because they will never listen anyway.

Phone calls and texts will go unanswered, plans will be rerouted to exclude you, and you will feel climbing anxiety, that the once-great group of girls that you thought you had found your place in, wasn’t that great at all.

You’ll go home sobbing, in pieces, and your mother will wonder and wonder, how the hell did this happen? How did my daughter, who I’d raised to be strong and independent, become so bent up over a group of girls that never learned how to play nice?

But that’s what change does. It puts you through the wringer, time and time again. It’s like Jenga. People will chip and chip at you, steal blocks out from underneath you, disrupt your structure. And once the final piece is taken, you will come down crumbling, the tower finally brought to its knees. But then you try again, you build the Jenga tower again, you bring it down. Life is full of moment highs and lows, and you find rippling joy in all the little waves in between.

You find that joy in Saturday night parties, drunk out of your mind, thoughts whirling, on the rooftop of your building, smoking to clear your anxieties, and then again when you watch trashy reality tv with your roommates. You find peace in visiting coffee shops with your newfound friend, (friend, not friends) knowing that she will always respond, no matter how crazy you get.

You’ll get a fake id, and flash your chest at the sleazy bouncer at the local pub, to get in and get wasted off of five-dollar shots and music reminiscent of a beat-up car’s stereo. But god, these memories are so alive, like a wire inside you, and that euphoric moment that you realize you are young, dancing, and drunk, is so fucking fantastic that you, for a moment, forget about everything.

Nothing is permanent, not at this age. So you decide you will do it all. You’ll lose weight and fill out in the right places, you will go to games and socialize, you will party hard each weekend, get high on weekdays, drink protein smoothies, listen to music, eat at crammed Thai places, get lost in the suburbs, do it all.

You’re meant to change, to stretch and rip at the seams, to be sewn back up by yourself.

And it’ll happen again and again and again.

It’s just hair, my mother would say after a particularly close crop, it’ll grow back.

It’s just life, she would say now. It’ll keep happening, and you’ll learn how to do the same.

I figure she’s right. I’ll “happen” too, but in my own ways, with my own choices. I can be all these great things, bad things, and everything in between.

But I can still come to Armistice, feel some sort of peace in the familiar, and then venture out into the jungle that is life. I can fear the unknown and brave it anyway because I can.

I just have to remember that once in a while.