Brunch at Hub Coffee
Date # 780 — Sunday Jan 17, 2016
A: I was working at home when B called me and asked if I’d like to meet for coffee. “More coffee??” I thought… I take B’s requests for coffee seriously because it usually means he’s in a social, happy, exploratory mood and I thought, “I could go for that!”
I was really quiet and in my head most of the day because of this stupid MRI I was going to. Anything hospitals makes me nervous and anxious and quiet and scared, and I miss my mom for the simple reason that she made it seem like one of her primary roles was to be with me in every one of this anxious, scary moments. She wouldn’t even hesitate, so when I don’t have her, I tell myself I just need to deal with it instead of roping in whoever is around me. If it were up to me, I would never, ever, ever, ever have to go to a hospital alone. Still, I told B I didn’t need him there: a cross between forcing myself to try to grow up and let go of mommy’s hand and feeling entirely too guilty to ask him to change his plans. I wish he remembered and just made time to come with me. I ended up resenting him all night for it, when it’s really my stubborn sense of self that caused all the emotional stir. But I really hate hospitals. I really do.
B: This was a nice spontaneous brunch discovery. I spent the morning at a photoshoot with my friend and had some free time before going to a training session at the climbing gym where I will be working part-time.
I called A and asked if she wanted to meet at HUB Coffee. The place is close to our house and we’ve passed it on walks but I’ve never been. When I got there A was already waiting at a table and, to my surprise, people were eating brunch! I thought, “this is such a wonderful discovery!”
A wasn’t hungry but said I could go right ahead and get brunch. I sometimes feel weird changing plans like this and often think the other person may not actually be OK with my decision. This, however, can be debilitating thinking. It also wouldn’t be fair not to trust A. If she didn’t want to watch me eat brunch, she could say so.
The food was fantastic and the coffee was above-average for brunch spots. We chatted about different things including my photo shoot. A seemed a bit thrown by something.
When we got back to our place I realized that she had an MRI appointment later that afternoon (as a followup to her concussion). I felt awful for forgetting. I can remember a lot of stuff, but I’m bad with things like this. I had climbing training but offered to skip it if she needed me to go with her. She said, “no” but I still felt bad (not trusting again…) I tried to reassure her, having gone to many MRI’s myself, before I left.
After A told me to always go with her to appointments like this, even if she says “no”. She seemed serious at the time, but I still wonder what she will say now. My plan is to remind her of this if she tells me not to come to a future appointment. I know MRI’s can be scary (I’ve had so many I don’t remember my first one) and I know it’s important to offer to go to appointments like this — to show support.
I always think it’s odd that we sometimes answer questions dishonestly because we think our honest answer may be an inconvenience to the other person. I know I’ve done this. What I try to practice is faith in either the person asking the question or answering the question — trusting they are asking because they want an honest answer or trusting that they are answering honestly.
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