Groundhog Day of Coffee and Tea

I had been heavy before. Heavy in the way people don’t see. Not the kind of heavy that slows you down, but the kind that keeps your muscles ready for war. I’d lifted things like people, grief, myself. I always knew where to go. Forward.

But then came the silence that followed my body betraying me. A forced stillness. My neck wouldn’t bend without consequence. My spine clicked like it wanted to speak but could only weep. And for the first time in my life, nothing moved when I pushed. It didn’t matter how strong I had once been my strength scattered into bruises only I could feel.

That’s where I was when I met him. Floating just above the floor of my life, not sinking but not rising either. Held by memory. By the echo of what used to be.

I didn’t think much of him at first. Just another uniform in a sea of them. But when I looked up and saw his face, I paused. Not because he was handsome in the showy kind of way but his face was… pleasant. The kind of face you want to see at the end of a hard day. Kind around the edges. The kind of pleasant that silences the chaos around you as long as you stared. Honest.

And his eyes. They were blue, but not a striking blue but rather an alluring blue that drew you into his depth even though he seemed clueless about this skill. They were more like the color of denim worn soft from too many washes. Familiar. Lived-in. I remember staring into them and thinking, I like his face… I liked seeing it. It felt like a quiet exhale, a silent sunset after a chaotic day.

He looked like someone who had already accepted some strange defeat in himself, and instead of fighting it, he wore it like an old sweater. Frayed, but warm. That’s what caught me. I wanted to know what he’d given up on. And why he hadn’t given up entirely. I wanted to know him.

The day we got together wasn’t romantic. It was practical. Human.

One of our managers someone with too much on their plate and too few people to call knew he was sick. And he knew I made herbal teas or old things that people forgot worked. Soups, teas, fruit steamed with light and love, little packages of care like a ritual I had inherited from ancestors I never met but somehow remembered.

So I made one for him. I didn’t think much of it. It felt like something you do for someone who might be slipping away in their own body. His hair was messy, damp with sweat. His cheeks pink with the kind of fever that speaks in whispers. I handed it off, nodded, and left. No ceremony. Just an exchange.

But the next day, he showed up. Pale with proper color but smiling. Said he wanted to repay me and bought me coffee.

Then it became coffee day every day; fortunately.

Then it became lunch breaks that blurred into long walks. Long walks that bled into sitting in the car after work with no music on, just talking. Always talking. We spoke like the world wasn’t ending outside the windows. As if each sentence was a secret spell holding it all together.

It wasn’t fast. It just was. Like breath. Like sunrise. Like something that didn’t need to be named to be known.

Eventually, he told me he liked me. That he had liked me since I gave him that soup and tea and fruit. That he felt seen. Not just helped but witnessed. I think that was the word that made my throat tight. Because I had felt so invisible for so long, trapped behind pain and silence, that I hadn’t realized I had done that for someone else.

And now, every morning that I pack his lunch, I think about that first bundle. I think about how something made with tired hands and careful care became the axis of our timeline. It feels like I’m back there every time. That same first day, over and over again. A loop I want to stay in.

A strange, wonderful Groundhog Day of coffee and tea.

When I pick out his snacks, I remember the first orange. When I pack soup, I hear the crinkle of the first bag. The first time I asked if he liked ginger and he said, “I don’t know, but I trust you.”

The past echoes in everything. But the echo has changed its tone.

Because I’m not the same person I was before I met him. Before my body betrayed me. Before my heart learned that surrender isn’t always defeat.

Trying again doesn’t always look like getting back to where you were.

Sometimes, trying again means picking up a spoon and handing it to someone new. Hoping they feel warmth. Hoping they stay.

I didn’t know where I was going when I met him. But somehow, without asking for directions, I ended up in a place I wanted to be.

That’s the story. Not a dramatic love affair. Not a grand gesture.

Just a sick boy. A pot of tea. And someone trying again with a different heart, a different mind, and a different history.

And somehow, that was enough. It will always be enough.