Catching Up Over Coffee

Last night, yours truly was up until late, chatting with friends, as is normally the case, these days!

It came like a whiff of fresh air—the much-awaited opportunity to leave aside all worries, forget the endless piles of chores, and dive in for an hour or two of chatting to our heart’s content.

Dispelling our initial scepticism, we’re now comfortable with having to show up before each other, ever since we’ve realised how easy it is to meet up virtually, without having to entertain the thought of either leaving home, or having to fuss over what to wear and how to reach our meeting point. All we do is make ourselves at home in a quiet corner that offers us just the right amount of privacy, settle down with your favourite beverages (optional, of course!) and get set for the evening!

The camaraderie is palpable. Across varying time zones and changing moods we allow our conversation to flow, unhindered. Most days, it flows easy as water, as we offer one another a window into our souls. Most often, we go along rather slow, and as we pick up pace, we find ourselves diving into a broad spectrum of topics, dipping between the serious to the soulful, bordering on the amusing, the outrageous and the downright quirky as well. I think it encourages us to be ourselves, as we are—which probably explains why these chat sessions also emerge as being cathartic, in some ways.

Often, as it happens., the weight that we might have been carrying within us all week, gets lifted in a matter of minutes; perhaps something that we picked up about writing is shared, little trivia of our everyday lives often gets shared (albeit, with a pinch of salt!) and almost always, we will crack up with something extremely ordinary but funny, that life seems to throw at us, in the most inconspicuous of ways. We seem to agree that despite the ups and downs, we must lift each another up, that we must not give up hope and that despite all heartbreaks and the stumbling blocks, life must go on.

For some reason, our indulgence in making self-deprecating remarks takes precedence over our achievements; almost always, the overly self-critical attitudes towards our writing comes to the fore. I assume, that our preponderance to exaggerate our failures, is actually a way of coping with our growing self-doubts, considering that we are all a work in progress at this point in time, hoping to come to fruition, at some future stage. The growing doubts drown our little victories as we wallow in misery—something that most of us seem to admit rather openly, but we don’t harp on that topic anymore. Once we share our self-doubts, it feels almost cathartic to our creative souls. We move on to other things in life.

On the whole, it’s a nice feeling to learn to let go and be who we are. Far from perfection, we seem to work on our little goals as writers. To be authentic is a choice. To be comfortable in our skin is essential. To share our thoughts without the fear of being misread or misunderstood an absolute necessity, within the group.

We know, at the end of the day, sharing a laugh when life gets tough is the best medicine and the best way forward. It usually works for us most of the time. I’m sure it works for everyone.

Good communication is just as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.

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Written as part of our #SoulfulSunday freewriting exercise—a concept ideated by Vinitha, Shilpa and yours truly.