Aurora Magazine 2019

My favorite way to enjoy coffee as a child was poured over ice cream at Grandma’s house. By the time I was in high school I had developed a fairly sophisticated palette for a junky. My mother was overjoyed when I started working at Java Dave’s where she could buy gourmet beans at a discount. Plenty of research and science has gone into answering why humans, especially women, are busier than ever. Much of it has to do with the effects of genetics, endorphins, cortisol, and over stimulation from a world on fire, that is, a world that, thanks to technology, moves quicker than the normal psyche can keep up with. Today, I’m weighing my tiredness with the consequences of caffeinating too late in the afternoon. At twenty I could knock back an espresso after dinner. Now, I have to be careful of being kept up all night with a lingering coffee buzz. Though nocturnal productivity is an ever present temptation, the cost is perpetual regret. Once, I managed to catch up on a day’s worth of laundry charged from that evening’s dessert coffee, only to resent the bubbly disposition of my teenage son’s spring break whistling the next morning. I cringed through a high pitched rendition of “Country Roads” while I sat at my computer trying to work. A trip to Starbucks followed. It wasn’t coffee that kept me up last night. Though I am fond of the occasional night alone to myself, when my husband travels, I find it hard to sleep. Funny how you get used to that same warm body next to you every night. Yea, it’s funny how you get used to someone being there. You take it for granted. When it’s suddenly gone, the mind panics, a stimulant that depletes the body. This is why hospital waiting rooms are always stocked with coffee. Unfortunately, it’s usually weak and burnt from sit - ting too long on the warmer. “How do you take your coffee?” a relative I hardly knew once asked me, a pusher. 16