I wasn’t born a coffee drinker. The one time I tried it as a kid, the taste was vile. But when you’re a kid, you shouldn’t be making permanent life decisions. In my late 20s, having survived five years of living on nothing but fruit and nuts, I gave coffee another go as a way of becoming more like normal people. My digestive system was already ruined from trying to eat like a monkey, so maybe the counterintuitive approach was worth a shot. I still didn't like it.
When you're not used to caffeine, the initial shock is exhilarating. It’s what death must be like after you get through the hard part. The high lasts for a few hours till you discover you didn't end up where you thought you would, in spite of all the good behavior.
Ripping your stomach to shreds on a daily basis is, in theory at least, not good for you. Unless you’re working towards a higher goal or laboring under the misconception that whatever doesn’t kill you can only make you stronger. I’ve been drinking coffee off and on for close to thirty years, and I can confirm that not only does it not kill me, it doesn’t make me stronger. Still, I persist, thinking I might learn something profound. Or figure out how to make it not hurt so much.
My friend Russ couldn't figure out how to make it not hurt so much. I wish we'd been good enough friends to know he had voices in his head. To me, he was a cool musical surfer dude I knew for years, lived across the street from, and eventually worked with, confided in, and even once slept on his couch the night I turned my world upside down to be with a girl who probably got dropped on her head as a child. Russ drove a white Falcon with a serape covering the hole in the floorboard on the passenger side. There's no competing with that kind of cool.
After my allergist told me to stop taking Montelukast because it’s a black box drug, my fragile balance was upset. I turned to saline spray, because it’s natural. Eventually, I dropped all the other allergy meds except for fluticasone, which my doctor said to absolutely not drop, at least not till my annual check up. I noticed that the saline spray does something weird, like make me less sensitive to coffee, unless maybe drinking half coffee and half milk has something to do with it, but milk’s not good for me, either.
Sometimes, it's good to be less sensitive. Less bothered by everything, big or small.
I refuse to live in a box. Pretty much everything distresses my damaged digestive system, so I throw things at it I shouldn’t. Like coffee. And ice cream. As a pre-diabetic, eating sweets makes me feel like somebody who jumps out of airplanes for a living, though hitting the ground metaphorically is a lot less scary than hitting it if your parachute doesn’t open. I’ll take the metaphorical over the direct hit any day.
I’ll probably quit coffee again at some point in the future. Because I’m a quitter. Quitting is the one thing that's kept me from giving up altogether. That and trying. That makes two things.
Most sane people recognize that when something disagrees with your equilibrium you should stop doing it. They'd get over the pleasure of grinding their own beans and grind their own teeth, instead. I'm not that person.
My friend Ty was probably a coffee drinker. I say “probably” because we weren't that good friends. He treated me like we were best friends, and I'm guessing other people feel the same way. He's the reason I got to go up and photograph the US Army Parachute Team, The Golden Knights, even though I lacked press credentials. He had a little girl named Quinn, who was the light of his life, and a black ‘66 Cadillac convertible. Planned his own funeral should the worst happen.
I'm having second thoughts. Strong coffee is a weak excuse for not doing scary things. Maybe I'll start the day with my variation of Thai iced coffee and go on a tandem jump like I once said I would. Next spring, after the instructors thaw out. Do it for Ty. Do it for Russ. Do it because coffee and jumping out of an airplane shouldn't be the same.