The smell and taste of Matcha green tea filled my body. I didn’t know a table size of tea at the local tea house was a damn kettle size. I played it off by continuously drinking one cup after another.

There were many people in the tea house, most of them were hippie-like, eccentric young adults doing something on their macs. My night started well, I was making plenty of head-way with my photography website. I was able to make it have the look and feel of a simple design. I just have to spend a couple more hours with it to get it to the level that is presentable.

There were plenty of people coming and going, many talking about boyfriends or guys who acted weird. Some other ladies just talked about whatever, I wasn’t really paying attention to their conversation—it might have been too boring or I was in the flow of improving my website.

I had roughly an hour before I was going to get kicked out of the tea house and my laptop battery only had 9% or about 15 minutes left before I was force to drink all of the tea in the kettle. So I saw an extension cord near a young Asian woman, with her pretty mac that was nicely decorated with an array of colors that I couldn’t make out the design of. I asked her if I could plug in my cord (just thinking about that statement makes me laugh with the sexual innuendo). My cord wasn’t long enough so I had to move to the table right next to her (see, there it goes again).

Instantly, there was chatter.

She asked what I was doing. Working my website.

I asked her what she was doing. Playing games.

She asked what the website was about. I said photography.

Then we went back and forth with what other things each other liked, looked at each other’s photos, told her I was writing a novel, and then she went into a spill about how she is volunteering at a low-performing high school. For 3 years. She also told me that she once worked a job for a year and just hated it. She used my term to describe it—Mindless Monkey Shit!

I then asked her what she did most of the time. Watching television. I asked if she liked watching movies. She said that a movie requires full attention, the t.v. is for background noise while playing on the computer. She said she likes to paint, but lost interest. She said she had a problem finishing things; it was cool to know somebody who has the same problem I had. She’s been working on a mosaic for 3 years and simply got bored when the excitement turned into boredom.

I tried to think of ways to help her. I asked her what she liked to do more of. I asked her if she had anything that she looked forward to waking up to. I asked her if she felt lost. It was like I was talking to myself 5 years ago; however, she was admitting of being lost— which I felt was more than I was back than. I was in denial, she wasn’t at all. I admired that about her. She knew that she was lost, didn’t have any direction, and didn’t know how to get there.

I wished I would have spent a longer time helping her. I could have gave her a couple of task or fun assignments to do to get her mind thinking about her life and what she wanted to ultimately do. I wish I could be her life-coach and direct her through the path she organically flowed in.

I didn’t. I talked to her about my novel, I don’t even know if she noticed that it was about people like her. I tried to push her to tell me more about what she liked, a clue that will help me help her. But nothing. Her boyfriend came, we caught him up of the discussion, he asked a couple of questions and they left. They left as the night at the tea shop was ending. They left to start another day of wonder and without expectation—just the thought of that gets me excited even more.

I came to realize yesterday night that what I’m doing with my novel, this blog, photography, and whatever I decided to do is for others. I can reach people online and offline. I just have to instinctively trust myself.