There’s nothing worse than being all geared up for a day in the Paddington office, getting to the station and finding the train is late. The other day, arriving bang on time, two minutes delay turned into five minutes turned into 15 minutes and usual morning bonhomie withered at the prospect of my early start being for naught and the chances of me making it for my 9.30am meeting reducing to zero. Not to mention the fact I’d got up at sparrows to make the train, and could have had an extra half hour in bed.
When the train finally made its appearance I settled down to check up on mails and messages I’d missed. But GWR WIFI wasn’t going to play ball, and I balefully watched the rotating daisy petals of the buffer icon going round and round until I’d reached a semi-catatonic state of inertia. Dragging my bloodshot eyes from the screen I shut them instead. Maybe a nap would help kill the journey and restore my frayed soul.
Waking up at Paddington I felt like I’d been run-over. I was now late for my meeting, behind on my email and groggy from having slept too long. There was only one solution – a Beany Green Americano, possibly the answer to all life’s problems. Certainly up there at this point anyway. Unearthing a Yeti coffee mug from the dark recesses of my over-stuffed backpack I headed for the counter.
‘MORNING!’ Bellowed the barista as I approached. ‘What can I get for you?’ She beamed at me. I felt like a slate wiped clean. Like one of those games where you have to whack a hammer down really hard to get the bell to ring (she the hammer and I the bell in this scenario). The welcome was possibly disproportionate to the entrance of a small woman clutching a pink mug and requiring a black coffee, but hey. I wondered if everyone got the ‘beam and bellow’ treatment…I was 100% down with it and told her as much.
Sometimes when my energy levels are low and I’m feeling negative, I find it really hard to dig myself out of the slump on my own. I need the energy of others to fire me back up again. This was one of those times. That barista dragged me out of the mire in a millisecond.
Coffee in hand, energy levels on the up, I made my way into work, leaving my bad mood behind. Isn’t it fantastic how one good ‘morning!’ can make such a difference? It lifted the rest of my day. I felt positive, busy, efficient, I got what I wanted to do done. I even made that 9.30am meeting (by the skin of my teeth).
At lunchtime, I went back outside into the most beautiful sunny day in Paddington. Queens was on the big screen and the basin was full of folks enjoying the tennis and the warm weather. Everyone looked like they’d stepped out of a magazine photo shoot for London in the summer. It took a lot of self-discipline not to bag myself a deck chair and set up camp for the afternoon. And Draper was on. But I held firm and headed back, remaining on my roll for the rest of the day.
Energy is a powerful force. I’ll admit I have a lot of it. Too much sometimes! I get carried away and forget to dial myself down. On the other side of the coin if I’m feeling low I can cast a shadow over everything and everyone. And then there’s a rare, neutral space I disappear into every now and again. A place where I go to hide when I’m upset about something, or hurt, when I need to think, or lick my wounds. When I emerge from that place, I’m clearer and stronger.
There isn’t always a sunny smile on the other side of a coffee counter to pull us out of a fug, but that doesn’t mean we can’t conjure one up; for ourselves, or for someone who might look like they need a lift.
I like to think that when I tap into my internal stores of positive energy and share them with someone else, I might have made their day – without even either of us even realising it.
Not from Newbury 