Breakfast

I have a lot of contacts in my IM and the names dance up and down the list in alphabetical order. Some people I talk to daily and others are only there to add the the commotion. Added to my list automatically after one CCed email or friending on Facebook. I’ve only made a point to remove one or two people in all the years that I’ve used IM.

A name popped up on the list today and caught my eye. A man that I was interested in once upon a time. Geography and other excuses stopped me from every saying something to him outright, but I did get up and have breakfast with him for a week. He didn’t know that I dragged myself out of bed and skipped taking a shower to have breakfast with him every day, but I did. I enjoyed his company and he always beat me to breakfast. So I would get up, throw on clothes, and race to the cafeteria for breakfast just to say “Is this seat taken? Am I interrupting or can I join you?”

I can think of only one other time that I did that. I was in Japan, about to turn 26, working in study abroad. I went to Japan the day after my house was robbed by a man with a butcher knife while I was sleeping. I went to Japan very nervous, with nightmares of men breaking into my room and easily startled. One of the students was a non-traditional student, the same age as me, about 5 years older than the rest of his cohort. We were early risers and had breakfast together that week of orientation. After jet lag gave way to normal sleep, I continued to wake up early to have salmon, rice and coffee with him.

It’s nice, isn’t it, getting up to have breakfast with someone.