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Coffee Debacle
Mar. 8th, 2011 09:53 amOn Sunday I randomly decided to skip having a cup of coffee. When I got up that day I felt awake and rested and didn't really see why I'd need one. And at first, there were no consequences... I felt fine. But partway through Sunday afternoon I began to feel kinda... weird. Like I'd stuffed my head with cotton balls. But I said, "Well, I'm probably just dehydrated," and drank a lot of water.
I survived. In fact, I felt well enough that I started thinking seriously about giving coffee up for Lent. I'm not Catholic; I'm a United Methodist, and we're not required to give something up for Lent. Some people do as a way of focusing their spiritual discipline on a closer relationship with God; cutting out something that might have been a distraction, as it were. Others do it simply because it's a good time to try to get a particular monkey off your back: alcohol, coffee, dessert, television, smoking, whatever. I suspect I drink too much coffee: as a trainer, I drink black coffee all day to stay perky and engaging... or bouncy, or whatever you want to call it. And I probably drink too much. So, I thought "Let's try this for a couple of days and see if it'd be something that I'd have a hope of doing for six whole weeks."
Then Monday happened. We got TWO FEET of snow late Sunday night and Monday morning. The snow was so bad that Interstate 89 through our area was closed due to jackknifed tractor trailers and cars that had run off the road. Conditions were just about as bad as they could be: the swirling and drifting snow made the road almost, but not entirely, impassable. At times the visibility was near zero. Unfortunately, I had to clear my long driveway with a snowthrower and then drive all the way to the office anyway to fetch my laptop, which I'd left docked at the office on Friday after looking at the weekend forecast and seeing rain. Yes, I should have swung by on Sunday to get the laptop when I was at church near my office, but I didn't think ahead. Dumb of me.
So the round-trip to my office on Monday took two hours and change, taking surface streets the whole way and staying off I-89. No one was at my office when I got there -- the big parking lot had been plowed but the place was deserted. Our inclement weather policy tells people to work from home if the weather is bad enough, but no email was ever forthcoming officially saying anything like "The office is closed." I guess people just checked the weather, called their managers, and told them "I can't make it in." But I got my laptop and headed back out, feeling really, really, really cranky and wrung out. And the cotton-balls-in-head feeling was worse than ever. How much of this was due to the snow and the stress, and how much was due to the lack of coffee, I can't authoritatively say. But I do know that I felt rotten.
So, when we stopped on the way home at the one gas station we saw open to fill our gas cans so we'd be able to keep our snowthrower running, I gave in and purchased a cup of coffee. I added enough 1% milk so I could quickly drain it and get back on the road heading home, and as I drove home I quickly started to feel a bit less cranky and wrung out and woolly-headed. I never got to feeling all better, but felt better than I had. And that didn't make me feel good about the whole giving-up-coffee thing. If, 36 hours into my coffee fast, I was already feeling miserable, and only felt better after giving in, what did that say about my ability to make it for six weeks?
So today, I woke up again feeling fairly awful. I decided not to torture myself and just had done with it and made a cup of coffee for myself before my morning shower. But that's it for the day. If I can't go cold turkey, at the very least I had better work on limiting my intake. As rotten as I felt yesterday, snow or no snow, that tells me that my body was really not happy about my trying to go cold turkey. And that tells me how bad my problem really is. I've got to scale back so I'm not absolutely poisoning myself. Your body isn't supposed to feel that bad after you go ONE DAY without coffee.
So am I going to give coffee up for Lent? No, I don't think so. But I'm going to try to limit myself to one cup a day and see how that works for a couple of weeks, then maybe go to a half cup, and so on. I really don't like the idea of being this dependent on the stuff.
I survived. In fact, I felt well enough that I started thinking seriously about giving coffee up for Lent. I'm not Catholic; I'm a United Methodist, and we're not required to give something up for Lent. Some people do as a way of focusing their spiritual discipline on a closer relationship with God; cutting out something that might have been a distraction, as it were. Others do it simply because it's a good time to try to get a particular monkey off your back: alcohol, coffee, dessert, television, smoking, whatever. I suspect I drink too much coffee: as a trainer, I drink black coffee all day to stay perky and engaging... or bouncy, or whatever you want to call it. And I probably drink too much. So, I thought "Let's try this for a couple of days and see if it'd be something that I'd have a hope of doing for six whole weeks."
Then Monday happened. We got TWO FEET of snow late Sunday night and Monday morning. The snow was so bad that Interstate 89 through our area was closed due to jackknifed tractor trailers and cars that had run off the road. Conditions were just about as bad as they could be: the swirling and drifting snow made the road almost, but not entirely, impassable. At times the visibility was near zero. Unfortunately, I had to clear my long driveway with a snowthrower and then drive all the way to the office anyway to fetch my laptop, which I'd left docked at the office on Friday after looking at the weekend forecast and seeing rain. Yes, I should have swung by on Sunday to get the laptop when I was at church near my office, but I didn't think ahead. Dumb of me.
So the round-trip to my office on Monday took two hours and change, taking surface streets the whole way and staying off I-89. No one was at my office when I got there -- the big parking lot had been plowed but the place was deserted. Our inclement weather policy tells people to work from home if the weather is bad enough, but no email was ever forthcoming officially saying anything like "The office is closed." I guess people just checked the weather, called their managers, and told them "I can't make it in." But I got my laptop and headed back out, feeling really, really, really cranky and wrung out. And the cotton-balls-in-head feeling was worse than ever. How much of this was due to the snow and the stress, and how much was due to the lack of coffee, I can't authoritatively say. But I do know that I felt rotten.
So, when we stopped on the way home at the one gas station we saw open to fill our gas cans so we'd be able to keep our snowthrower running, I gave in and purchased a cup of coffee. I added enough 1% milk so I could quickly drain it and get back on the road heading home, and as I drove home I quickly started to feel a bit less cranky and wrung out and woolly-headed. I never got to feeling all better, but felt better than I had. And that didn't make me feel good about the whole giving-up-coffee thing. If, 36 hours into my coffee fast, I was already feeling miserable, and only felt better after giving in, what did that say about my ability to make it for six weeks?
So today, I woke up again feeling fairly awful. I decided not to torture myself and just had done with it and made a cup of coffee for myself before my morning shower. But that's it for the day. If I can't go cold turkey, at the very least I had better work on limiting my intake. As rotten as I felt yesterday, snow or no snow, that tells me that my body was really not happy about my trying to go cold turkey. And that tells me how bad my problem really is. I've got to scale back so I'm not absolutely poisoning myself. Your body isn't supposed to feel that bad after you go ONE DAY without coffee.
So am I going to give coffee up for Lent? No, I don't think so. But I'm going to try to limit myself to one cup a day and see how that works for a couple of weeks, then maybe go to a half cup, and so on. I really don't like the idea of being this dependent on the stuff.
