Hot Coffee

One of my goals from attending BlogHer’13 last weekend is to write more often. Writing is a muscle, one of the speakers explained, and the more you use it, the stronger it will become. So, to that end, I’m joining NaBloPoMo this month. NaBloPoMo is a daily (weekends are free writing) blogging exercise centered around a theme. For August 2013, it’s, appropriately, hot. 

One summer, I tried to give up coffee.

I, ill advisedly, went cold turkey. No weaning myself slowly. No going from a venti to a grande to a tall coffee. Just bye bye caffeine in a fit of inspiration (or desperation).

It was a disaster. I was tired and cranky, and found myself standing in front of the coffee display in the cafeteria at work, looking at the people stopping in to get their cup of joe with such longing that I’m surprised no one called security.

I kept at it for several days, until someone–OK, until multiple people in my life, including coworkers and family members who lived in other cities–told me to give up my caffeine-free life.  Released from my goal somehow by their request, I joyfully returned to coffee and haven’t looked back.

Even when I was pregnant, I drank coffee. I asked my OB about it, and she, thankfully, said my one (large) cup a day habit wouldn’t hurt Baby (not original but that’s what we called my son in utero) or Skippy (my daughter had a more exciting pre-birth name). Shockingly, though, at some point in each pregnancy, I couldn’t drink it anymore (I craved limeade instead), and my travel coffee cup went unused.

Last fall, on week six of regularly commuting Monday through Thursday to a client in Pennsylvania, my husband came home with one of those Starbucks coffee-in-a-cup machines. He must have felt bad for me—I was overextended trying to balance the kids and an extra busy time at work—and thought quick access (brews in 30 seconds!) to the magic elixir would make up for his absence. It didn’t, of course, and at first, I thought the coffee maker was a strange gift.  Don’t you give your spouse something sparkly when you feel bad? But my husband knows me better than I realized. Each morning as my coffee starts to brew, I’m reminded of his brilliance. And, that first cup is a pleasure.

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Kimberly