On Saturday a funny thing happened. Or tragic. It depends on your point of view. The thing was this: we ran out of coffee.
My DH, hero that he is, makes me a cup of instant coffee to start the day every day. He is AMAZING. He hates the smell of coffee and despite that, he starts his day with the blessed scent in order to enable me to wake up. Every day. (Have I talked about how blessed I am?)
But yesterday, no coffee. Apparently there was half a teaspoon of coffee in the jar. He filled the rest of the spoon with decaf and we made do. Sort of.
I was already feeling pretty tired. I’ve been feeling that way for a bit now and I’m hoping it’s just a cold and that it passes, or that I make it to holidays (three weeks but who is counting) or that something happens and I don’t feel like this very soon.
I probably needed thirteen cups of coffee to get anywhere near awake on Saturday but I got half a cup. What that meant was that after breakfast I put a load of washing on, went downstairs to find the next load, saw the bed and wasn’t seen upstairs for another three hours.
Eventually I dragged myself out of bed and into the shower. Then I hit the grocery store and bought a jar of instant coffee, stopping for a large flat white on the way.
So I’m a caffeine addict. Or, at least, I rely on a couple of cups a day to get me awake and keep me awake (I usually have a top up at lunchtime). After the coffee I was a little more human. I had a lovely afternoon and even spent the evening out.
On Sunday I had a full cup of coffee to start the day and went to church. But I got to about two songs in and realised that one cup of instant was not going to cut it. So I ducked out of church, over the road to the shops and bought myself another flat white. Then I took myself and my coffee back into church for a brilliant sermon and kids spot and was able to make it to the end of the service and even have some friendly conversation afterwards. I hope the smell of the beautiful cuppa didn’t drive those around me crazy but maybe it meant that the church sold more coffees after the service than usual (money goes to Thailand in case you were wondering why we sold coffee – we give the instant stuff away :-))
One of the things I love about going to the church I have been part of for so so so many years is that I feel totally at home there. I need to remind myself that people who have been part of our church family for less than 35 years might not feel quite as comfortable as I do. They might not realise that it’s quite ok to duck out for a coffee if you need to, or to cry, or to dance, or to lie on the floor, or to write messages on your phone to your DD, or to discipline your kids (all of these things I have done in abundance over the years). I guess I will just keep smiling and doing the weird stuff that I do – hopefully people will get the message.
One of the best moments of my day on Sunday was watching a couple of lovely elderly ladies who sit front and centre in our church. They were getting down to the music. There was definite boogie going on there. They were dancing – doing the Tassie-two-step. It was joyful. It was awesome. I just love that! So maybe people are getting the message after all.
This is a particularly rambley post but the take home message is intended to be that you’re allowed to be human and go to church. And that I’m taking time out and getting better but I get garrulous when I’m recovering from the flu 🙂