Wednesday, March 17, 2010

I LOVE coffee (aka my newest addiction)

Ever since I was a child, I have loved the smell of coffee. To me it symbolized old people and a pace of life that included sitting around the table in the early morning because you wanted to, not because you had to. When my brother and I used to spend the night with one set of our grandparents, he and I would fight over who got to put the scoops of coffee into the automatic coffee maker at night. No matter who won, the other one would hover excitedly at the shoulder of the winner, simply to be there as the can opened to take that first delightful whiff.

My parents never drank coffee, or if they did it wasn't consistently enough to own a coffee pot. I dabbled in drinking it in college, mostly because my boyfriend was addicted to it, but also when I needed it for the random all-nighters I pulled about once a semester. But it never had a strong enough pull to entice me over to the dark side for any longer than a cup now and then.

Enter children.

Coffee can make me feel like I can take on the world. I can do absolutely anything after a cup of joe. Chase the pig that got out again and put it back in the pen. Fine. Read twenty books that I just read yesterday to the girls. Check. Clean twelve dozen eggs. That's nothing. And to hear me speak - it's like my brain is on overdrive and if I don't voice every thought that is frantically running through it, something bad will happen. Yes - it will and it does. Voicing every thought is NOT a good idea. Lucky for me, when I first started drinking it more regularly, I drank it in the wee hours of the morning. My journal and occasionally my husband were the only recipients of those rambles.

Coffee and I still had an on-again, off-again relationship until the birth of my third child. Now, along with fantasizing about a bathtub all to myself for longer than five minutes, I dream about when I can have my next cup. And it's not diminishing this time. I've decided to give a little slack to all of those out there who NEED coffee each morning/noon/night. I'm slowly crossing over and becoming one of you.

And I think I am okay with this. Yes, I'd like the be the type of person who drinks coffee for the bitter flavor (according to Tim, he likes his coffee like he likes his women: bitter and murky; funny guy, he is), but I'm not. I like it because of the chance to sit down in the early morning, waiting for the sun to rise. I like it because of the feeling I get drinking it and then again after I'm done. I love to watch the cream as it swirls through the black liquid. But mostly, I like drinking it because when I do, I can see myself in thirty years helping my grandchildren count the scoops as they clamor to see which one gets to help this time.

1 comment:

  1. i can't believe you are becoming not just a coffee drinker, a coffee LOVER. i LOVE IT!! :) yum!

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