Over-Caffeinated

You know what's weird? When one cup of coffee does you in. Utterly. Shakes in the hand, woozy feeling in the tummy, kinda wobbly on the legs.

Many many years ago, I gave up all of my caffeine. Every bit. I didn't even eat chocolate. This is because I found a lump and it scared me. I was diagnosed with fibrocystic breast disease, and I decided it was better to be safe (i.e., minimizing cysts by limiting caffeine) than sorry (mistaking a real lump for a cyst and ignoring it).

In the middle of all this decaffeinated goodness, I started dating a fellow who brewed his own beer. Very very yummy beer. He made one particularly yummy brew, a chocolate cherry stout, that we popped open on New Year's Eve. Within 30 minutes, my heart was racing and I was shaking so badly that I couldn't read the cards in my hand (yes, we celebrated the New Year with a card game because I am just that kind of party animal). I was shaking like a madwoman. From the caffeine in a chocolate beer.

Caffeine doesn't like me.

So I ignored it. For, like, six straight years. Until I had my second child, and a full-time job on Wall Street, and I realized that umpteen million years of pregnancy and breastfeeding had made all the fibrous cysty bits go the way of the dodo.

So I had some chocolate. Then I had some more. And some tea. And then, maybe four years ago, a cup of coffee. And then a cup every morning. And sometimes one in the afternoon, too, because Starbucks is just that yummy.

And it seemed to be going okay. Except that today I realized maybe it wasn't.

The past few days I've been on a bit of a nutritional cleansing exercise. It's part of my attempt to Get Healthy (yes, this deserves capital letters, because once you gain that last pound that pushes you across the line into obesity you realize you need to get serious). Getting healthy means eating much, much, much better. It means managing my stress. It means sleeping. Which, in turn, probably means a bit less blogging, but I'm gone so often now I'm sure y'all will hardly notice. I'm gone because the new au pair left, and I'm smack dab in the middle of 8 weeks with nothing but the public school system and a few stalwart friends for childcare, eagerly awaiting the arrival of au pair number 10, who is awesome and asks me questions and writes me emails and introduces me to her boyfriend.

So, the caffeine.

This morning, on Day 3 of the Big Get Healthy, I brewed up a cup of coffee. I left it black, which is just exactly not how I like it. And I drank it. All of it. Because I'd mixed my morning meal into it, and I had to finish the morning meal.

Hey, there, shaky shaky. In 30 minutes flat. Shaky and woozy and vaguely nauseated. After exactly three caffeine-free days.

Caffeine really really hates me. Probably it's time for me to realize I need to hate it right back.

Starbucks, I'm gonna miss you.