If I could sit across from anyone right now, it wouldn’t be a famous writer, or a friend I’ve grown apart from, or someone I miss but don’t know how to talk to anymore.
It would be you.
Seventeen.
In that shared room in Šiška, Ljubljana.
Late winter.
Your first time living away from home in a way that felt real, not just temporary or exciting or new.
The kind of solitude that sinks in after the initial rush fades.
The bed by the cracked window, the sound of the main street below never quite letting you sleep fully. Trams gliding like slow insects. Ambulances cutting the night open, disappearing into silence again. The radiator clanking every few hours like it was remembering how to work but never quite succeeding.
It was the kind of room where you kept your socks on even in bed. Where the floor was always cold, and the steam from your breath stayed longer than it should.
The kitchen was small, shared, uninviting. You wiped the counters before you used them, then again after, not out of politeness, but because you didn’t know how else to belong. The hallway light flickered. The bathroom fan made a noise like a tired animal. But you lived there, and that meant something. It meant you were starting.
—
That morning — the one I still think about more than I should — you decided to try pour-over coffee for the first time. Not because you wanted to impress anyone or because you thought you’d be good at it. You didn’t even really know what it was supposed to taste like. You just wanted to make something. Something small and deliberate that felt like it belonged to you.
You had found the dripper in a corner of a kitchen supply store. Cheap plastic. The kind that feels like it might melt if the water’s too hot. The filters didn’t fit exactly, but you figured it didn’t matter. The beans were stale, you knew that, too — but they were the only ones you could afford. Some brand with a picture of a mountain on it, sealed but scentless.
You boiled water in a dented pot on the shared stovetop. Watched the bubbles rise without knowing when to stop. Poured too quickly, unevenly. The coffee bloomed and collapsed all at once — no timing, no care. The smell filled the room: sharp, smoky, a little like wet paper burning. You poured the dark liquid into the chipped mug someone had left behind. You didn’t love the mug, but it had weight. It felt real.
The first sip was terrible.
Bitter.
Hollow.
Like something had been overcooked and underdone at the same time.
But it was warm.
And you had made it.
So you drank the whole thing, sitting on the floor with your back against the heater, notebook in your lap, trying not to be disappointed that the moment didn’t feel more cinematic.
—
And yet that cup — that terrible cup — is something I return to often.
Because that was the first thing you made just for yourself.
Not to prove anything. Not to show anyone.
Just to feel alive in the morning.
To mark the beginning of a day that otherwise might have blurred into the one before.
You didn’t realize it then, but that was the first act of devotion.
Not to coffee, not even to writing — but to your own presence.
To being there, even if it didn’t feel particularly special.
You did it again the next day.
And again the day after that.
You learned to pour slower.
To listen to the sound of water on grounds.
To be gentler with your expectations.
Not just of coffee, but of yourself.
—
I would tell you now, if I could, that this is how everything starts.
Not with certainty.
Not with skill.
But with a cold room, a bad cup of coffee, and the quiet courage to keep showing up anyway.
You will move through brighter rooms and darker ones.
You will make coffee that tastes like ritual.
You will write things that matter.
You will lose people, and find them again in dreams.
You will hurt, but not forever.
You will change, but not all at once.
And you will always remember that first cup.
Because it wasn’t about taste.
It was about attention.
And that, more than anything,
is what I’d want to thank you for.
life 