Giving Up Coffee :(

I guess what I miss most about giving up coffee is the morning ritual. Crazy as this may sound, I liked thinking that my day couldn’t start until I had at least 2 cups of coffee. Some mornings, the thought of a fresh hot cup of coffee was the only thing that got me out of bed. In the winter chill, huddled over the steaming cup, I would write in my journal in the wee hours of the morning. In the summer, I would go out on the deck with my mug of coffee and inhale the fragrant salt air blowing in from the Great South Bay. Salty air and coffee – it doesn’t get sweeter than that.

When my children were young and wanted to go to the park or the beach before they even ate breakfast, I told them, “Don’t bother me until I’ve had my coffee.” They understood that, and as long as I still had that cup in my hand, they kept busy by themselves for awhile. Sometimes I walked around with an empty cup just to stall them a little longer.

It is an excuse I’ve heard and even used myself at work when someone comes into my office before I’ve had a chance to take my coat off and settle in. “Can we hold off on this,” I tell them, “until I’ve finished my coffee? My neurons haven’t fully connected yet.” We share a knowing chuckle and the annoying person disappears for awhile.

I don’t know if it was psychological or true that coffee in the morning made it easier to deal with things. With a steaming cup next to my calculator, my sewing machine, or my laptop, I knew I could do anything. Coffee was a ritual, a habit, a comfort, my friend.

Recently I developed a condition called GERD, short for Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease. It’s the medical term for heartburn, or, agitta, as my father calls it. I lost sleep at night for a month, forcing me to drink more coffee during the day, which exacerbated the problem further. I developed a slow constant burn in my stomach, and whenever I fed it, a fire roared up. I wasn’t digesting my meals, no matter what I ate.

An upper endoscopy revealed everything was normal, but the doctor gave me a list of foods to avoid:
Coffee and caffeinated beverages (my friend)
Chocolate (my lover)
Carbonated Beverages (seltzer with lemon – my drink of choice)
Peppermint and peppermint tea (my favorite tea after dinner, Mentos!)
Citrus Fruits and Juices (love my navel oranges! And lemon ices!!)
Tomato Products (I’m Italian. Need I say more?)
Pepper (Put pepper on my toast in the morning. Love hot stuff.)
Fatty or fried foods (don’t care about these)
Alcoholic beverages (don’t drink ‘em)

“What’s left to eat?” I cried in disbelief on the ride home.

“I’m sure you can have coffee,” my husband said. “Just limit it to one cup a day.”

Was he kidding, or what? May as well give it up altogether, I thought. Besides, I reasoned, if I had to give up my favorite foods, I may as well suffer the full blunt of the blow and say farewell to my longtime friend and companion – my coffee.

…To be continued