Breaking Up with Joe

I’ve had to say goodbye to a good friend recently. To a dear, bold companion. My steaming cup ‘o joe. My beloved coffee. Sigh. Parting is such sorrow. (Notice I omitted sweet.)

Before you think this decision is some testament to my discipline or that it’s is rooted in some deeper spiritual meaning, I’ll tell you right off the bat, it’s purely for digestive reasons. I’m only doing this because my GI tract indubitably demanded it. And so far, my intestines and stomach have been much happier organs now that Joe has left the building. My taste buds are crying out unfair but my stomach is telling them to suck it up and deal with it.

My husband got me hooked on coffee twelve years ago. Come to think of it, that’s not entirely true. It was my son to be exact, when I was carrying him. (Funny how even in utero our children have that kind of power.) Most women lose their taste for coffee during pregnancy but mine was just revving up. The rich aroma of Doug’s coffee actually soothed my precarious stomach in those early months- that and lemon heads- and I eventually started drinking it. Loaded with sugar and cream at first but as the years went by, I gave up the additives and craved pure, unadulterated coffee.

But now, for whatever reason, coffee just isn’t “working” for me anymore.

So now I start the morning with a nice cup of hot lemon water. Or herbal tea. And I tell myself that it’s just as good. And when my husband’s not looking, I hover my face over his coffee cup and inhale the steam. And just to prove this isn’t legalistic, I sometimes cheat. Like this Sunday afternoon, when  I savored a quarter of a cup of French Roast while lounging on the couch reading Kathryn Stockett’s “The Help”. Pure heaven.

It’s clearly good for me, this coffee deprival, but I still fall into whining. The first two weeks of my fast I’d pass a Starbucks and burst into tears.

I’m over that now. I’m over Joe. You know what? He wasn’t such hot stuff after all. Sure, he was charming. Sure he was lovely and comforting and exhilarating, all wrapped in one. But so is my lemon water.

At least that’s what I’m telling myself.