Coffee Stories
Going home with gray roots and a gorgeous soul
I’m sitting in my cozy spot this Saturday morning—warm blanket, coconut candle, bossa nova jazz, Florida sun streaming through my window. The dishwasher is running. My coastal Christmas tree glows in the corner. The new entertainment center my son bought me holds paintings from my daughter and my Florida adventures. Everything around me is perfect, calm, fun, meaningful.
And tomorrow, I fly back to Indiana for Christmas.
Here’s the thing: when I look around this space I’ve created, there isn’t a single thing I had to sacrifice for, owe somebody for, or act small to get. Everything here exists because I decided it belonged. Including me.
But tomorrow I land in Muncie, and all the ghosts live there.
The visual irony
My hair is outgrown, brown with gray sticking through. My teeth are still crooked. I’ve gained weight. And here’s what makes me laugh: I looked more like Florida when I LEFT Indiana than I do going back. Indiana is dull and brown, like my hair.
But inside? Inside it is absolutely gorgeous, happy, elegant, accomplished, sunny…healing.
I am more real now than I have ever been in my entire life.
The tables I’ve left
I’ve gotten up from a lot of tables where I didn’t belong—both professionally and personally. I actually applaud myself for doing so. There were work situations that demanded I shrink. Relationships that required I dim. Spaces that needed me smaller to make room for someone else’s bigger.
I left those tables. I’m proud of that.
But here’s what I didn’t understand until I put 1,000 miles between myself and Muncie: I didn’t know what “feeling small” actually WAS until I left the biggest, most confining table of all.
Muncie, Indiana, was the table where I didn’t belong.
The interior design
God gave me His sonlight early in my life. It’s THIS light that has shone through all the dark times with encouragement, strength, happiness, faith, resilience, tenacity, integrity…and love.
But somewhere along the way, I learned to make that light smaller. To turn down its brightness so I wouldn’t be too much. To contain its warmth so others wouldn’t feel cold by comparison.
Florida didn’t fill a missing piece in my life. There was no missing piece.
Florida gave me space to bloom into who I already was.
Now when I look around my cozy spot—the safe space I’ve created for myself—I see what happens when you stop making yourself small. You become real. Genuinely, completely, unapologetically real.
What I’d tell her
If I could go back and tell my 20-year-old self one thing, it would be this: Never ever let someone make you feel small.
Not for love. Not for acceptance. Not to keep the peace. Not to fit in. Not to make someone else comfortable with their own dimness.
Your light isn’t negotiable.
Landing real
So tomorrow I land in Muncie with gray roots and crooked teeth and extra pounds. The ghosts will be there—the memories of a life lived, the echoes of who I used to be, the evidence of all the ways I made myself smaller to fit.
But this time I’m not going back to prove anything. I’m not polished. I’m not perfect. I’m not packaged in a way that says “look how great I’m doing.”
I’m just real.
And real is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever been.
Grab your coffee and let’s talk: When did you realize you were making yourself small? What table did you finally walk away from? I’d love to hear your story.
My word stack for today:
Real
real, [ree-uhl] adjective, Origin: Latin res “thing, matter”
What you become when you stop shrinking yourself to fit tables where you don’t belong.
These mugs are part of our Coffee Stories collection – word stacks inspired by my personal journey shared in these posts. Each memoir piece becomes a stackable memory you can hold in your hands. Start your own collection and create combinations that speak to your journey.
