"Fifty six", he said with the bored tone of voice of someone who has to repeatedly serve coffee to an ever-changing crowd of people.
I wasn't sure how much that was in Aussie Dollars, I just knew I wasn't willing to wait until after parkrun for my first coffee of the day.
With my large soy latte in hand, I did the math as we walked back out of the airport to catch the next metro
north.
"Oh My God. I better not tell you how much this was," I said to Brad, feeling a mixture of disbelief and guilt.
Part of me didn't even want to tell him. But another part wanted to just admit it out loud, get over it and move on.
"Fourteen dollars."
It felt absurd. I could feed an entire family with a home cooked meal for that amount of money.
Brad reminded me that airport coffee (our closest coffee outlets) is always expensive and that we are on one of the most expensive cities in the world.
As I sipped on my hot coffee, trying to appreciate it as much as I possibly could, I continued to feel like it was ridiculous.
As the metro continued barrelling towards the city, I made a mental decision to just have smaller coffees and even look for drip coffees in the cities like this in future.
I was about ready to let myself move on as we pulled into a subway station.
We stayed on the train as our destination was still ahead of us, but I had a clear view of disheveled man sitting on the station floor.
Through the thick glass, I could see a bike propped up behind him, full of things that reminded me of homeless people in our Australian cities.
There was a can on the floor next to him, that my mind immediately assumed was alcoholic but in truth I do not know. But what I could see what his body was shaking in his hunched over, seated position.
Was he laughing at something that none of us could see or hear, or was he crying at how hard his life was was?
I looked back at the $14 coffee on my hand and felt the guilt reawaken and expand to epic proportions.
I thought, not for the first time, how is this fair?
I've had this sense of the unfairness of life for a long time. When I was younger, it was often with myself as the victim, seeing how much more other people had than me.
And while I still feel that from time to time these days, more and more I have felt the injustice of how much I have compared to others.
While I don't consider myself rich I certainly have access to a lot of resources others would kill for. Literally.
I am immensely lucky.
I am becoming more and more aware of this the older I get.
But recently I've noticed a new struggle emerge. I've wondered how to navigate being so "lucky" when others have so little. Like, how do I BE with that?
I've come to realised that part of the reason that people tend to gravitate towards those of a similar wealth status os because it feels more comfortable.
If you make five times the national minimum wage, send your kids to private schools, drive a luxury car and take international holidays regularly, it feels safer and better to socialise with others who also think this normal.
It's deeply uncomfortable to be wealthy and be surrounded by people who simply cannot have or do the same things as you.
So the poor hang out with the poor, the middle class with others like them and the wealthiest hang out with people who think a $14 coffee is mildly annoying and nothing more.
But I don't want to avoid my feelings.
I don't want to stuff down my guilt and just hang out in safe circles with people just like me.
I want to do something radically different than I hear almost no one talk about:
I want to be with anyone and everyone, at all levels of wealth, of all backgrounds, of all belief systems as long as we have something fun in common.
It could be parkrun.
It could be a love of animals.
It could be a desire to do genuine good in the world.
But I don't want to seal myself in a echo chamber of sameness. And I don't want to pretend that I'm "above" feeling guilty and paint a smile on my face as I speak with others who, for whatever reason, have less.
I want to learn how to BE with my guilt, to BE with my discomfort, and if possible be strong enough on my love for everyone that I can help whoever I'm interacting with also navigate any discomfort they might have with me.
Lofty goals?
Perhaps. But anything worth doing is worth practising.
I have a sense I might need to practice this one for life.
But I think I'm okay with that, because no matter how much money I might accumulate over the coming decades, deep down I know that a truly rich life can only come from being able to deeply love each other as we are.
