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When you’re not the Main Character

*love- supporting the protagonist.
Frequenting coffee shops is an established habit. Lately, it’s included a little pal—my Felicity baby. Sometimes she insists that bouncing must happen or else crying will happen. I bounce her and people watch.

Four teenagers sit against a window. The boy has his arm possessively draped around the shoulders of the leggy girl in the shorts. A woman by herself attempts to use her phone. She goes up to various tables and makes observations about their lives. She smiles a lot. A girl with a pretty face and textured hair sits focused on her studying. A college couple sits in the high metal chairs. She speaks about ethnic diversity and the blond haired boy listens with eyes alert. They lean in just far enough to show they are not a couple yet.

A million wishes, wants, prayers and thoughts must radiate from the coffee shop. Main characters plodding along their own plot lines. And I bounce my baby, and I also march along my sub-conscious starring role.


You don’t need marriage or motherhood to learn the “you’re not the main character lesson," but they have been instructive for me. Love is an outward act and it requires a forsaking of self and seeing of others.

Yet even as I continue to learn to embrace the needs of my husband and child, it is still so easy to watch the coffee goers as the protagonist. The lady by herself needed some random coffee goers to play the supporting role in her story.

Maybe coffee shops also try to teach. 


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