Hey ho, squiders. February, amirite? Actually, January felt like it lasted a million years, so I don’t even know.
I drink a lot of coffee, my friends. A cup or two, almost every day. Sometimes three. (Never more than three. I have learned my lesson.) Sometimes a cup of decaf in the afternoons.
In fact, we got a new coffee maker for Christmas.
But it wasn’t always like this. Once upon a time, I disliked the taste of coffee and did not drink it at all. I’m immune to caffeine. It doesn’t wake or keep me up, which is both a blessing and a curse. (It will, eventually, make me jittery, though.) I didn’t drink it in either high school or college. The one time I did, in college, I got a latte at the airport after we’d left our college town at 3 am to make a 6 am flight in the hopes of staying awake. (Instead I passed out on the floor and one of my teammates had to wake me up so I didn’t miss the plane.)
My junior year of college is when I started writing again (after writing as a child and in high school). I met with other writers at diners or hung out with my best friend at a local tea shop. I’d get a milkshake or a pot of tea and a scone and write. This was often my favorite time of the week. Still no coffee.
After graduation, we moved to California and I joined a local writing group there, and they met at a coffee shop every Sunday. Of course, you can get non-coffee drinks at a coffee shop, but it’s not quite the same. I also started meeting with a friend one night a week to write, at another coffee shop.
And here is where I discovered mochas. A mocha is a mixture of coffee and chocolate and milk, and they are really bad for you, just fyi. Lots of calories. But for someone surrounded by coffee drinkers who did not like coffee, they were a good entry point. So I’d go meet with my friends two or three times a week, and I’d have a mocha.
And then I had to stop, because as I said, they’re high in calories, and I actually gained some weight.
When we moved back out here, my father in law gifted us the coffee maker we had up until Christmas, which was your basic single carafe Mr. Coffee machine. We used it exactly once a year, at Thanksgiving, so people could have some coffee to counteract the turkey. But once again I started meeting other writers for writing. One group met at an IHOP, so I could get a milkshake, but the rest were coffee shops.
One group met on, oh, Friday nights, I think. 10 pm to 2 am. I’d get a whole pot of coffee and drink it through the meeting.
And this was a terrible mistake. I fried my stomach lining. It got to the point where I had to give up coffee completely–even drinks that were mostly milk–because the smallest amount would cause severe abdominal pain. I think I went three years without any coffee at all.
Then I joined a workout class, and after class on Fridays everyone would go hang out at the Starbucks and socialize. There I found I could drink espresso drinks (but not coffee, which makes no sense whatsoever).
And over time I, I don’t know, built up my tolerance or something, and I could again return to my coffee drinks at my coffee shops with my writing people. My spouse and I also got a French press and had coffee on Sundays.
So that was my life, up until the pandemic. Coffee was something I associated with writing with friends, which was almost always a good time.
But with the pandemic, and being stuck at home–well, coffee was something I associated with Good. My spouse and I broke out the Mr. Coffee and started having coffee several days a week. For comfort. I did virtual coffee dates with my friends. I drank coffee around my inability to focus because the world was falling apart and the small, mobile ones were always home and needed help (a four year old cannot tell time enough to go to their own zoom meetings). I did virtual write-ins.
It was very much an attempt at peace and normalcy. Did it work? Not especially. But four years down the line, it’s an extremely hard habit to break. Part of me says I should wean myself off, that too much caffeine, even if it’s not affecting my sleep patterns (though it still hurts my stomach if I drink it too late in the day), is bad for you, and that once or twice a week is reasonable and should be a goal.
The other part of me says I like coffee, it is calming to some degree, and most studies say that a cup of day isn’t going to hurt you. Why should I take away something I find enjoyable?
A conundrum. The new coffee maker helps not at all, because the addition of the pod side means I can make myself a cup without making a pot, making the whole process even easier. (We’re trying to make sure we get the kind without plastic because oh boy.)
I suspect that, if I hadn’t started drinking coffee at my writing groups, I never would have started. It was definitely an acquired taste. Mostly I drink mine black with a splash of oatmilk, and my favorite drink at my favorite shop is kind of like a mocha, but more coffee and less milk to make it healthier.
How about you, squiders? Addicted to coffee, and how did you end up there? Thoughts on caffeine in general?
