Paying It Forward

I’m often not ready to get out of bed until well after 7a. This morning I woke up at 6:11a.  As I blinked the sleep from my eyes, I grabbed my phone and perused my social media accounts. I thumbed through, long enough to catch up on my old Facebook memories, new baby announcements, someone (who is not a doctor) updating us on their latest thoughts of how to get rid of COVID, political warfare, and lastly, news that a good friend from high school had passed away.

In under five minutes, my day had already seemed heavy. In fact, for the last few months, there has been a heaviness in the air. Life feels incredibly uncertain, unknown. Things change from one day to the next and no one knows up from down or right from left. I set my phone down beside me on the bed. I looked up and wondered how long that large crack had been in the ceiling. I began thinking of the things we still needed to complete in our home. I thought of how I needed to get to work. I thought of laundry I needed to switch over. I thought about the dishes I needed to put away downstairs. I thought about how I needed to lose weight to fit into those cute pants. I thought about money and finances. I thought about all the things. I turned my head to the left and stared at the clock, 6:18a. Then, I got up.

I threw on some cozy clothes, brushed my teeth and took my overthinking brain, straight to Starbucks. I wondered on my way what the line would be like. It’s always crazy, at least 15-20 cars, but…I had never gotten there this early. On my arrival, one car was just pulling up to order, as I pulled in the drive thru behind. When it was my turn, I placed my order, reloaded my Starbucks app and patiently waited for the car in front of me to grab their goodies. When I pulled up to window, the lady said to me, “The gentleman in front of you paid for your order, so you don’t owe anything! And you should feel lucky”, she added with a sweet grin, “he comes through all the time and I’ve never seen him do that for anyone, before.”.  I looked at her, shocked. I had always heard about stories like this happening, but it’s never happened to me. “Thank you so much!” I croaked as I held back tears. I pulled away, thanking the barista, at least three more times.

At that moment, when my morning had already felt so heavy, I was sweetly reminded there was kindness and good in the world. I was reminded that every day is a beautiful gift and that laundry, dishes, and tangible things don’t matter in the end. I woke up  b r e a t h i n g , today. My family woke up healthy. And to me, that’s a good freaking day! So, if there’s one thing I can leave you with while you’re reading something near and dear to my heart, it’s that when life, social media, and everything around you seem so heavy,  just remember—you woke up today and once we remember something as simple as that, we become a lot more thankful for everyone and everything around us.

And because there was no car behind in sight around me at Starbucks this morning, I wanted to pay it forward to one of our Loyal Royal readers! 

(Just take this picture and have the Starbucks team scan the bar code on your phone.)