By May. Last month I met Crystal in a coffee shop and she told me she thought about me every day and this month I want to tell you: I believe her. I do not know yet what to do with believing her. Believing someone is not the same as forgiving them or understanding them fully. It is just a starting point.
We met again on Saturday, at the coffee shop near her shelter, and she told me more about when I was born. She was nineteen. She had been using for a year by then and she could not stop. She said she knew she could not keep me and she left because she told herself I would be better without her. She said she has spent twenty-four years not knowing if that was true. I said I spent twenty-four years not knowing who she was. She said: do you hate me. I said: I do not know. She said: that is okay. I have been asking myself that for twenty-four years too.
We stayed two hours again. She told me she has been clean since 2020, through the shelter program. She is now a peer recovery counselor there. She meets with women in the early days of their sobriety, the hardest days, and tells them: I know where you are right now. I have been there. You can come through it. I listened to her describe this work and I thought: she does the same thing I do. She holds people in the hard early days. She learned how to be steady through having been unsteady. That is not nothing. That is actually something I recognize.
Both of those Saturdays, we sat with coffee between us — something warm and slightly bitter that we could wrap our hands around while we figured out what to say. I don’t know that I’ll ever fully untangle what I feel about Crystal, but I know that the coffee shop has become a kind of neutral ground, a place where hard things feel survivable. This brown sugar shaken espresso is the drink I’ve been making at home in the days between our visits — strong enough to feel like something real, sweet enough to keep going.
Copycat Starbucks Brown Sugar Shaken Espresso
Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 5 minutes | Total Time: 10 minutes | Servings: 1
Ingredients
- 2 shots espresso (about 3 oz), freshly brewed and hot
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, plus more for topping
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup ice
- 1/2 cup oat milk (or milk of choice)
Instructions
- Make the brown sugar syrup. While espresso is still hot, stir in the brown sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla extract until the sugar is fully dissolved. Let cool for 2 minutes.
- Shake the espresso. Pour the warm espresso mixture into a cocktail shaker or a jar with a tight lid. Add 1/2 cup of the ice. Shake vigorously for 15—20 seconds until frothy and chilled.
- Assemble the drink. Fill a tall glass with the remaining ice. Strain the shaken espresso over the ice.
- Add the milk. Pour the oat milk gently over the top so it cascades through the espresso. Do not stir — let it layer naturally.
- Finish and serve. Dust lightly with cinnamon on top. Serve immediately with a long straw.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 110 | Protein: 2g | Fat: 2g | Carbs: 21g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 85mg