Coffee Mug Reminders

I used to cry about broken glasses. I remembered that while packing up pieces of my kitchen to make the move ten blocks down Brady Street to a quiet upstairs apartment with two roommates. Three months ago I broke a glass coffee mug that was a gift from my favorite barista coworker in Denver some four years ago.

And that reminded me that I used to cry when I broke glasses. A younger version of me thought things like cups were important enough to cry about. But then I remembered breaking a glass as a child in front of my mom. I started to cry not because the glass was broken but because I had broken it. I had let her down . Those were her cups and even though we owned ten of the exact same one and they held no value beyond the occasional midnight swig, I had broken something.

When I fumbled the coffee cup into the insultingly large sink for a studio apartment, I didn’t bat an eye. Instead, I thought of that barista whose name I don’t remember anymore but who meant a lot to me four years ago when we worked together. He knew me well enough to know that I would love a little double-walled insulated glass coffee mug.

The mug I shattered was one of the last tangible reminders that I used to live in Denver before Covid. I remembered that while trying to scoop up all the little pieces from the drain. There isn’t much left to remind me of the past at all. Even an old Nalgene water bottle had gotten too cold and smashed to pieces one winter evening while unpacking from a road trip. That water bottle had many stickers that served as visual cues for memories long forgotten now.

And looking around my half-empty studio, there are even fewer reminders than there were this morning. There’s my other Nalgene, the one I don’t use much anymore, with a few of its own stickers from past road trips and college. There’s the lamp I bought from some artists last year in Colorado Springs, but that’s a different sort of reminder. My bike sits in the corner, but that’s practical and not sentimental in the slightest.

Beyond those few trinkets, everything is present, everything is now. I had even forgotten about the glass mug until I almost dropped my favorite mug this morning in the same way.

And now that I think about it, there will be nothing to remind me of this apartment in the years to come. Nothing monumental happened, so there shouldn’t really be anything to remind me of this place. A picture here or there, not of the studio but because I was here when I took the photo. These words, I guess, will serve as a gentle reminder. Almost like being reminded of living at 1121 Wahsatch right after graduation. Or the brief stint I did in Bemis hall sophomore year in Colorado. Or I guess even the place in Athmar Park, where I would commute from every day to see that friendly coworker.

Not everything needs reminders. Not everything should be reminded of. I’m in the market for a new coffee mug again, I guess, because I’ve almost just dropped another one.