The Coffee Chronicles

Alright! Okay, already! I confess! I, Brooke Abbott, mommy & colitis survivor am and have been a coffee addict. I know, I know, I know!!! I know it’s bad for me! I know I shouldn’t drink it. And yes, sometimes it makes my stomach hurt. But after years of not being able to drink it because of colitis & pregnancies, I confess that now I’m back to being a coffee drinker.

Here’s the thing with the whole Autoimmune Disease lifestyle thing, any and everything can somehow in one way or the other flare you up. That’s just the way it is. I can go three years of having an amazing diet, live a very zen boring life and then end up in a very very bad flare up…or not…but in my experience no matter what I ended up in a flare up! Even my hormones affected my disease. Then there were other symptoms that came on that aren’t cured with diet or anti stress. Usually they are environmental. Well, I don’t live a solitary existence in a bubble. I’m in the real world with a child with real world issues that have been compacted by health challenges. And you know what? Sometimes I deserve something that I like. I mean I live a pretty restricted life as it is with diet restrictions, physical restrictions, fertility issues…a little coffee break isn’t going to kill me. It’s not like it’s a whole loaf of whole wheat bread with every seed and nut known to mankind with a side of roasted corn, raw carrots and a vat of fiber. I haven’t lost my mind. It’s just one cup of coffee. And if it ever gets to a point where it is making my recovery impossible then I will stop…I think… Just kidding! I mean come on people, you get it! I know you do!

Okay so, why coffee? It isn’t so much the need for caffeine or even really the taste. But I love it! Huh? Well, if you’re creole

or from the south or if you had a great grandmother or great aunt in your life then you understand. You’ve probably been drinking it, like me, since you were 3 years old! *Suddenly blown back by the amount of imaginary gasps blowing through my computer screen* Yes, I said, 3! “Is that why she’s so short?” HA! NO! It’s not coffee in the traditional sense. It was usually in a very small tea cup, like miniature, that was filled with a liquid looking more like beige milk. Actually that’s just about how I drink it now. A short cup, light roast with more cream than coffee and two equals. LOL! Yea can you even call it coffee? It’s more like cream with a drop of coffee. The best part about going to Nannie’s house or Grandma’s house was getting to drink coffee with them in the kitchen like civilized people and talk about what was happening on Sesame Street. Coffee always came with dessert at my aunt Lonnie’s house. The two sisters were usually in the kitchen chatting I would be right there with them. Literally up under my grandma in the kitchen and Lonnie would ask her, “Cle, how do you want your coffee, babe?” and my grandma answer, “Oh about ‘so and so’s’ color.”  Then I would get a sip or get to use my own special cup. Every household had a special cup for you. If you were under the age of 6, you got to drink out of the special miniature tea cup. After that you could just go around getting random sips from the old folks. And usually the sip came with a nibble of a treat. Oh you’re probably still stuck on the so and so’s color statement? Who ever so and so was that was the right brown color she needed her coffee to be! Get it? LOL! Yes, that’s how black people measure their cream, by so and so’s color. When I was younger I took my coffee like Nannie’s color (very light brown). When I got to college, I took my coffee like my mom’s color (little darker than Nannie). Now I take my coffee about like Jaxon’s color (Dark white, as he says!). So maybe it’s more than the actual taste of coffee. It’s the history and comfort that I associate with having coffee. Having coffee, making coffee it all brings a certain comfort to me…a sense of normalcy. Where there was coffee, there was love.

Maybe what I’m actually addicted to is, Love.