The Perfect Cup of Coffee

I do this “thing” on Sunday Mornings. It’s call it “quiet time.” First, I light all the candles in the living room and turn on any decorative LED lights. Lamps and light fixtures are turned off, and coffee is made. Sometimes, I get extra “fancy” with whipped cream or Bailey’s. It’s always adorned with spices and honey.

Next, I settle my dog on her bed with something to chew and take a seat on the couch. There I silently reflect on the past week and get mentally prepared for the week to come. There is usually music; depending on the time of year, it’s Holiday tunes or Daryl Hall & John Oates.

It doesn’t maybe make sense to someone on the outside, but to me, there is an element to both that can reach me at a level that is soothing to me. The music codifies my soul. This month I was lucky enough to snag an extra “quiet time.” It was on New Year’s Day. I also had the perfect cup of coffee. Maybe it was the lack of sleep or the Vanilla Cinnamon Bailey’s, but this cup…this cup…it was exquisite. It was dreamy sweet with the perfect blend of spices, and after a few sips, that’s when I felt it… Hope.

2021 was a mostly miserable year. I don’t think I’m alone in that sentiment from what I see on social media. From job loss, ramping up at new ones, lack of sleep, and hemorrhaging money for a wide variety of reasons to lasting physical and mental health issues from contracting a breakthrough case of Covid-19 and sustaining a substantial back injury, it was a tough time. I struggled. I remained grateful for any good, but I definitely found existence challenging. Additionally, I suffered creatively as well. When you experience that level of joylessness, participating in the arts is almost meaningless and trite.

To say I was “stuck” does not adequately describe the unique place of hell I found myself in before the start of 2022. I felt like my soul was drowning in a lake polluted by layer upon layer of shame, grief, and regret. I was barely doing a doggie paddle stranded miles from shore amid the sludge of a dismantled former self. The lake is greyish brown, and the sky above is filled with those dark-bottomed clouds you see just before a torrential downpour. I am sinking. I am scared. There was no hope. I knew I couldn’t thrive feeling this way long term.

I have come too far in my own personal healing of generational curses just to be a shell running on caffeine, luck, and pleasantries. Instead of trying desperately to stay afloat, I just let the “sink” happen. “Alright, emotions. You are here. It’s cool…what you got?” (I know, it’s a funny way to acknowledge your feelings are valid, but, you know, works for me.)

There are great tools available online. Search “emotional color wheel” and go to “Images”. You will find tools to help you process emotion blockers. Try it! I have grabbed 3 or 4 of them because they can be different, but they all seem to start at the same primary places.

I took out the wheels I had chosen and started breaking down every emotion that seemed to surface. My sadness was ultimately a volatile mix of isolation, abandonment, grief, emptiness, and feelings of inferiority with a pinch of disappointment. Fear showed itself as overwhelm, worry, and exclusion. The anger I also felt was a deeper level of betrayed, resentful, violated, and infuriated all ending up at numb. Numb. That’s why I was at this point. The sheer weight of this emotional cocktail had made me apathetic. One by one, piece by piece, I examined all of these feelings until they were so small and so exact that I could begin to digest them. I talked them out; a lot! I examined and re-examined and said, “why,” and “what is this,” until I had reached them all. It was then I could ask myself things like, “were my needs going unmet?

Do I feel unheard or disrespected? Was a value of mine compromised? Is there something I need to accept or change?”

Depending on the answer, I could now process and let go of the emotion however that looked, whether it be acceptance, placing a boundary, or any other action needed. I finally began to let go of the trepidations from the last year. I understood not only what had happened but how it affected me. It’s not enough that whatever it was, “it’s over.” Everything we go through leaves a mark somewhere in our psyche. They imprint on our soul. It will deal with us if we don’t take that time to deal with it.

At the end of it all, what was left was just me…me and the perfect cup of coffee…

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to recreate that perfect cup of coffee. I doubt it, as I’m sure it was a one moment in time kind of thing. However, it seemed to signal a start to a new year for me. Maybe it was just I was finally ready to move forward at that exact moment. Perfect coffee proved to be a reset button; labeled “hope….”

…because I could find it now.