My Life as an Overpriced Coffee Shop

(Author’s Note: Okay! Before I can type anything else Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are engaged. I know, like seriously, I have not been this interested in any kind of Royal wedding until now. Michael Ross, I would be more upset about not marrying Prince Harry myself but the truth is I have a total crush on them both. Also, on a side note: I wrote this post a week ago. After discovering I have become a bit of a Sad Sally as of late, I have made some cosmetic tweaks.)

I would love to stay and chat all night but we gotta make this quick. Why? Because (1) I have an Aquafit date with my old ladies and (2) my laptop battery is going to die.

This post comes to you directly from a trendy coffee shop on Main Street with no outlets. So trendy that I just spent $6 on a cup of chamomile tea which I am still sore about. While waiting for the tea to steep, I debated whether I should have gone for a $5 Happy Hour glass of white wine across the street instead. Except then, I would have skipped Aquafit (100%) and spent twenty times that before last call. So, I guess in a sense I am saving money right now. Whatever you need to tell yourself Rugged.

From the outside looking in, this corner gem looks like a glossy page ripped right out of an issue of GQ. With white walls, minimal décor and concrete floors, there is no question I would’ve hit like on this café if it scrolled past me on Instagram. Except like everything else in photographs, looks are not always as they seem. For now that I am here, sitting on an uncomfortable bench, trying to balance my dying laptop on a pair of beige khakis and sipping a cold cup of tea, I am thinking the next time I will keep scrolling.

Truth be told, I cannot help but think that this stylish café and I have more in common than I care to admit. While the exterior sheen of our lives is attractive, shiny and on point, the inside experience is somewhat uncomfortable and unreasonably priced.

When I first moved here from Winnipeg eight years ago, I promised myself that I would not let the glitzy, superficial make-up of Vancouver overshadow the flat and sturdy build of my prairie heart. That was of course until 2015, when every aspect of my social life became fodder for Instagram, and the whole of my love life was reduced to a single hook-up app.

I guess it is imperative that as we move through life, we must always find, no, make the time to step back and assess which minor or major adjustments need to be done. It is strange, but when I look back now, I feel like I raced through my twenties just to get to my thirtieth birthday - and now that I am 32, I feel like I probably should have slowed down. For these days my house is under more construction than ever.

That is okay though, because now that I have settled in at the Fox Den, the work has already begun. While I still have a ways to go, the steps in each blueprint are there: live more and take pictures of living less, seek likes from trusted best friends and family as opposed to strangers on the internet, and when given the chance to chat with men in person, take it.

For example, I am pleased to report that last week, rather than sit in all night watching Netflix and thumbing through Grindr, I took myself down the street three blocks to piano night at the fabulous gay bar XY. Ordering a glass of red wine, I turned my stool out from the bar as if to say “Hello world, I am putting myself out here.” Unfortunately, I ended up having such a good time I drank too much wine and forgot most of the night. No one said this life is perfect.

Gosh darnit! I am late for Aquafit! Talk soon.