Coffee Breaks

I haven’t always been a fan of coffee.

What I’m saying? I still don’t think I’m a fan of coffee. I like the smell and the taste, sometimes. It’s always been like that.

But coffee hasn’t been a part of my life.

Until… May 💕

If you have been following some of my other posts, you may have an idea of what happened in May. If you haven’t, don’t you worry, I like talking more than necessary 🤭

When I was little, there was coffee at home. Both of my parents drank it. To the point that I even have one picture from my childhood where I’m drinking coffee with a spoon. I don’t think it was a common occurrence anyway, so there’s no need to worry.

Growing up, the coffee at home stopped. And I only drank a cup on the scarce occasions when I stayed at my grandma’s house.

My high school years were almost devoid of coffee.

A few years ago, I was chaperoning my niece and we went to a café, so I had a ‘special’ coffee. There was a match of three for the season, so we each bought one to taste them. I can’t remember what mine was even, but I’ve been pretty into tasting coffee since then.

It didn’t become A Thing™, though, until my partner came to visit in May.

He’s a coffee addict, that’s something to state and have out of the way. He can’t function without his two daily coffees, one first thing in the morning and the other midafternoon.

I’m more like a tea kind of girl, especially first thing in the morning. Tea or juice or just plain water. Gimme water.

So, when we were living together for ten days in May, we both had a taste of it. To the point that he also drank tea in the morning. Score?

I did not have coffee every afternoon. I can’t even recall having coffee at all, but we did go to this Barista House to buy specialized coffee and the bag was too big for his stay. I simply assumed he was going to take the rest back with him, but he left it for me.

I’m still not sure if it was a curse or a gift.

We forgot my little borrowed coffee maker in one of the Airbnbs we stayed at, so I had to wait for it to arrive after the really nice host sent it back to me.

Then, the coffee breaks started.

At first, I just wanted to only finish the specialized bag of coffee ’cause 1) it was expensive and 2) was one of the few things I had left from my partner. It helped me palliate through the complex emotions his absence brought me (as well as a jar of dulce de leche, right until then I didn’t know food could help me go through it — I’m not a foodie type of girl, I only eat ’cause the body needs it).

But, as we were virtually sharing those small moments every afternoon to have a coffee, no matter our different timezones*, or the stuff we were doing, it turned into a ritual.

* I’ve been trying to have breakfast, lunch, or dinner together, but it has been impossible! We only have one hour of difference. It shouldn’t be that hard!

Most of them, we do together. The few that we don’t, don’t feel the same. But still, when they don’t happen at all, I’m starting to get mad at my lack of coffee. Is it the coffee growing into me? I know I’m a Quality Time kind of person — and all the other love languages as well, figures. I know I don’t like being robbed of that special moment of the day with my partner.

His specialized coffee was over, now what?

Despair, in short.

I remembered my lil sister’s coffee was still around and got into the hunt for it, but… it had been here for a long time… It tasted awful. I threw it away.

So now I was sad because I didn’t have any more coffee.

A little bit later, my mom brought me a little bag of coffee. It was just a normal bag of the more common coffee. Not the best one, but enough to endure the meantime. At the time of this writing, I still have some of it, but recently my mom asked me to join her in a supermarket trip to choose for myself the next bag of coffee. I tasted it and I’m not completely convinced, but I will go with it after the previous one is over.

Just because of this growing… hobby? of mine, my mom is considering buying a bigger coffee maker. (It’s not as expensive as I thought it would be, to be honest.) Also, she gave me the thumbs up about going to the Barista House to buy the specialized coffee for myself. And that means a lot to me.

I’m not sure for how long I will have to bother about buying coffee (👀), but it has been an unexpected thing I grew attached to. Just because of someone. The things we do for love, sigh.