coffee date #12 with anna scott

carmex-lover, fellow Starbucks buddy, high school carpool pal, confident queen, chicken and fries indulger, my source of spearmint gum addiction

me: island breeze smoothie | anna: acaí berry boost smoothie
location: tropical smoothie cafe, new jersey

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Imagine yourself as a tiny, shy freshman. You’re in your high school’s single bathroom and have just come out of the stall. You now see a medium-heighted senior walking into the bathroom. Immediately, you throw yourself against the bathroom wall to make room for this senior to walk into the stall you just came out of.

Now, imagine yourself as that medium-heighted senior. How does it feel to carry that much power that makes the tiny freshman jump out of the way for you? Well, that’s a question I’d like Anna Scott to answer because ladies and gents, this was a true story! (I was NOT that freshman LMAO, but this actually happened to Anna in our high school and I still cannot stop cracking up about it).

Anna Scott is a year older and is from the same town as me. Thus, we went on the same bus (yes, the same one I took with coffee date #4) to drive to our high school. We’d have “lunch dates” in the cafeteria, where we’d stuff our faces with chicken tenders and fries as I unveiled all of the stupidity occurring in my life so that Anna Scott could just yell in my face and snap me out of it.

She was also my carpool buddy to school (before she graduated and coffee date #4 had to replace her). Hoping that my parents are never going to read this post, I’m going to confess my deepest, darkest high school secret.

Anna Scott used to pick me up at 6:30am almost every week, if not every day. I would text my bus driver that I wasn’t going to be on the bus, so that she wouldn’t show up at my house. Then, I would stealthily walk to my neighbor’s driveway, so that I could easily hop into Anna’s car without my mom or grandma seeing me through the window.

Yes, my deepest secret is that I snuck out of the house in the mornings, not to go do drugs or ditch school, but to simply go to freaking school. How pathetic was my life?

I don’t even remember what we’d talk about during these car rides, but I do remember that they just flew by. We’d very occasionally listen to Indian music that would hype us up ;), go on Starbuck runs and get our typical strawberry açaí refreshers, or sometimes just chew on some spearmint gum courtesy of Anna’s everlasting stock.

What I admire THE MOST about Anna Scott is her ability to feel so CONFIDENT! I’m not sure if it was a front and she was actually scared shitless or had moments of insecurities on the inside. However, on the outside, Anna Scott was a confident queen.

Epiphanies:

• There’s nothing wrong with taking the easy route.

I swear my phone listens to everything I say. A couple days ago I was re-watching this one scene from a movie and here’s what the dude in the scene says:

I die every time I watch and listen to that scene. Living in a society that glorifies hustle culture and productivity over our physical and mental health, we think it is crucial to punish ourselves to reap the benefits of life. But if we’re so busy torturing ourselves, then how will we ever reap the benefits of the present moment?

It’s crazy BECAUSE ANNA SAID THE SAME FREAKING THING during our date without me even mentioning this scene.

“If you know that both of those routes are going to take you to the same place, then why would you not take the easy route?” – Anna Scott, 2021

YEAH, WHY AREN’T WE?! Because society has embedded in us that good things never come easy. Good things always require a ton of sweat and tears. That is the case for SOME things, but it is not applicable to everything.

Here’s the example Anna Scott walked me through:

Anna and I took the hard route when we decided to go to Allied instead of our regular public high school. It was the hard route because we were forced to completely start all over again with making friends, the commute was gross, and the workload and competition was definitely higher. However, this route was worth it because we knew that we wanted to enter the healthcare field, so Allied prepared us for that far better than our public high school would have. Hence, the hard route was the best case scenario.

On the other hand, if you’re a college student looking for some job experience and you have the option of doing full-time or part-time, what’s wrong with picking part-time? If you know that you already have a lot on your plate – academic wise, family wise, relationship wise, etc. – then there is absolutely nothing wrong with you working for less time because your resume is inevitably going to say that you had “a year of summer experience working at this place doing this.” There’s a hard route (working full-time and balancing all your other responsibilities) and an easy route (working part-time and making time for the other areas of your life). The easy route is the best case scenario.

“Just take the path of least resistance.” – Anna Scott, 2021

This was so freaking beautiful and something that I really needed to hear!

• Notice the moments when you are anxious.

This was wild for me. I realized that I become aware of my anxiety after the specific event or situation has passed.

For example, I’ll be super anxious in the morning, but it’s not until the night of that I recall that I was anxious that morning. I fail to recognize the anxiety IN the moment and that is the most important part.

When we notice the anxiety or any emotion, rather, we will be better at tapping into it and analyzing it.

• We’re all really just judging ourselves.

I HAD to ask the most confident person I know about the source of her confidence. Anna Scott’s motto for having the confidence of a freaking queen is to understand the fact that everyone is judging themselves before giving other people the time to even judge them.

“If there’s anybody that you’re going to work to make proud it should be your future kids because then it’s somebody in the future. It’s not a current person who you’re trying to please.” – Anna Scott, 2021

I walk into a store and I’m immediately thinking about the mismatched socks I’m wearing, or my fly-away hair strands, or debating whether or not I put enough deodorant. I can guarantee you that 99% of the people in that store don’t even give a shit about the things I’m worried that they’ll notice because they’re most likely caught up thinking about themselves.

“Everybody is so self-focused.” – Anna Scott, 2021

• Sometimes the children and parents can switch roles.

There are times when I want to scream in my mom’s face for remaining looped into the old, archaic way of thinking. These thoughts can range from gender roles to mental health to divorce. These are topics and ideas that our generation has become more aware and understanding of. However, older generations can remain caught up in the way our ancestors have built this society.

For example, Anna and I both talked about how we’d go to our moms about some issue and they’d be quick to invalidate our feelings. Obviously it was never intentional, but they were primed from a young age to believe certain things so when their daughters feel something different, their go-to response is “Well that’s not true….”

“They think that solves the problem, but it doesn’t. It still makes us feel the same way, but now it makes us feel as though we don’t have the right to feel that way.” – Anna Scott, 2021

I told Anna that I sometimes get so angry with my mom that I just leave the room, instead of trying to explain the situation to her. Anna told me that the reason behind that anger is the fact that I’m expecting my mom to have the answers because she’s a parent, so she must have all the answers.

We tend to put our parents on pedestals and think that they know everything. They absolutely do not. Sometimes it’s up to us, their children, to call them out on their BS and try to educate them about the things that our generation has learned.

• Acknowledge people’s love languages.

Anna Scott and I are not very physically affectionate people. That’s just not our love language.

My mom, on the other hand, is physically affectionate. She needs the human touch. She needs me to hug her enthusiastically to show her that I love her.

As a result, some of our fights always revolved around the fact that she didn’t feel loved no matter how much I did because we had completely different love languages. And likewise, I always felt like she didn’t love me enough no matter how much she did. We can’t expect everyone to show their affection to each other in a similar way. That’s the beauty of being human. We’re complex people with individual needs and desires.

I loved the explanation that Anna gave me about why most mothers tend to want physical affection. She said because mothers literally created us. We were always so dependent on them from a young age. All of a sudden, we become adolescents and we no longer rely on them for food, shelter, and happiness. That is a huge shock to their system and their natural way to cope with that is to squeeze the living life out of us with their hugs and they expect the same in return.

What improved my relationship with my mom is having open, vulnerable conversations with her. Laying out everything that I did wrong and what she did wrong helped us understand each other better.

This also applies to friendships. Anna and I are the type of people to never share things in our lives with others because we know that we will fix it on our own, so what’s the point? However, throughout my coffee dates and her own life experiences, we realized that vulnerability is the key to developing beautiful, rock-solid relationships. If we flip roles and think about things from our friends’ perspectives, it will definitely be shocking for us if our friends don’t feel comfortable enough to open up to us.

“If you don’t know anything about them, are you really friends?” – Anna Scott, 2021

• Change up the routines in your life.

Anna Scott is one of the most spontaneous people I know. She supposedly abruptly decided to go to Florida during finals week. She literally booked a flight the day of with no planning involved. She said “Why should I be miserable studying for finals at home when I could be less miserable studying for finals in Florida?” Agreed. I aspire to reach that level of spontaneity one day.

Obviously, I’m not saying we shock our consistent lives to that extent, but we need to shock it to some extent. The minute we get used to a routine, that should signal us to challenge ourselves a bit more or do something more that brings us joy.

“Consistency is just sparing you from the unknown.” – Anna Scott, 2021

Consistency gives us comfort. Comfort prevents us from experiencing life. I understand that change can be anxiety provoking because it sure as hell is for me. But it is necessary if we want to discover our truest, most authentic selves.

• Therapy.

I’ve talked enough about therapy in my other coffee date posts. Let me just be as blunt as I can.

Go to therapy. Doesn’t matter if you’re “sick” or not. Therapy is for everyone and it can be life changing. Going to therapy does not make one weak or any less than anyone else. If anything, it makes them more emotionally aware and in-tune with themselves.

• “Nobody gives a shit.”

Anna Scott’s big life lesson that she wants to pass on to her children is “Nobody gives a shit.” By this she means, do not make decisions based off of others’ opinions. Be in control of your own decisions.

I can picture Anna, talking to her kids with a straight face and telling them that phrase, word-for-word, and her kids subsequently evolving into supreme individuals. If I was constantly told that growing up I honestly probably could have made it onto the Forbes list by now.

“I don’t care if they make the wrong decisions, but they will not make decisions based on other people’s perceptions and impressions.” – Anna Scott, 2021

YESSSSS!! 🥳 Anna Scott – you a queen.

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Post-coffee date, when we were randomly talking about our college life, this 75-year old woman came up to us and spoke about her career as a nurse. She talked about her life story and how much being a nurse meant to her. It was sweet because our conversation had enough meaning to engage someone from the outside and offer us some beautiful insights.