I have coffee at home

This morning, I made coffee at home.

It wasn’t because I wanted to. I wanted the one from the little shop near the park—the one with the cinnamon on top and the cold foam and the cheerful girl behind the counter who always remembers my name. But the grounds were already in the machine, and the mug was clean, and I told myself it was better this way.

Some choices are small, but they echo.

We went to the park a little after ten. The older one climbed the monkey bars like he was training for something. The little one followed behind, not quite as graceful, not quite as fearless, but just as determined. The sky was wide and blue. One of those mornings that feels like it’s trying to be remembered.

Then the ice cream truck rolled up.

The music was just loud enough to turn heads. The little one didn’t notice—too busy with a bug in the woodchips. But the older one did. He jogged over to me, eyes wide.

“Can we get one?”

I paused. I looked at the truck. I looked at the time. I thought about the money in my wallet and the sticky hands and the lunch we’d packed.

“Not today,” I said.

His face fell. Not dramatically. Just enough.

“Why not?” he asked.

And there it was. The question. The one that lives under so many others. Why can’t I have what I want? Why is life sometimes unfair? Why do I have to wait?

I tried to explain. I talked about sugar before lunch. I talked about saving treats for special days. I said things I believed but that didn’t land the way I hoped.

He nodded, but his eyes told a different story.

On the walk home, he didn’t talk much. He kicked at cracks in the sidewalk. Held my hand, but loosely. He wasn’t angry, just disappointed. And in that quiet, I started to question myself.

Would it have mattered if I said yes? Would the ice cream have meant more than the lesson?

But here’s the truth I keep coming back to: he needs to hear no sometimes.

Not because I want to be the bad guy. Not because I’m trying to control him. But because being human means learning how to live inside limits. And someone has to teach him that.

Life won’t always bend to his wants. There will be jobs he doesn’t get. People who don’t love him back. Mornings that start wrong and stay that way. I don’t want him to meet all that hardship for the first time at twenty-five, stunned that the world didn’t rearrange itself for him.

No is part of love, too.

Not just to stop him from something—but to form him into someone.

I still remember being told no when I was his age. I don’t remember the reasons. I just remember the moments. The ache of not getting the thing I wanted. The sharp edge of it. But I also remember the comfort that followed—my dad handing me half his sandwich, or my mom turning on music in the car a little louder than usual.

The lesson wasn’t in the no itself. It was in the way they stayed with me through it. How they didn’t walk away from my disappointment, but sat with it. Let it cool. Let me learn that sadness didn’t mean the end of the world.

I want to do that for him.

I want to teach him that feelings are real, and they pass.

That disappointment is part of the contract of being alive.

That not getting what you want doesn't mean you're unloved.

When we got home, I poured the rest of my coffee over ice and sat at the table. He came over a few minutes later and leaned against my arm. No words. Just weight.

I rubbed his back and said, “I know you wanted it. I hear you.”

He nodded. Took one of the crackers from the bag on the counter. The moment passed.

He’ll forget about the ice cream by dinner. But maybe, in some quiet way, he’ll remember the shape of this moment. That his want didn’t undo him. That he was held, even in disappointment.

I made coffee at home again this morning.

I said no yesterday.

I think both were acts of love.