10.50 Five Cups

When I’m up to five cups of coffee a day, I know I’m in trouble.

One advantage to getting older is being able to have a better understanding of your moods. Anyone that knows me, knows that I can be a bit moody at times. A bit. Okay, sometimes a lot. My friends and family are gracious enough to be patient and accept all of the different angles that make me up. And I hope I do the same for them.

Now I am certainly not using this as an excuse to being an asshole, but at the times where my mood goes south, it can manifest itself as withdrawing, aloofness, and pulling away. What can I tell you, it’s just my style. I am functional and able to continue with everything - work, social engagements, etc. - but I know I’m not at my best.

Back to getting older. If I’ve learned two things, it’s that 1) I can tell when the mood will shift towards a downward trajectory; and 2) There’s not a whole hell of a lot I can do about it.

Like someone with arthritis who can feel an oncoming storm, I know when the switch has been flipped. I do all the things that help me manage what’s coming, and perhaps even hold it off for a bit - keep eating right, exercise, sleep right, talk to people. But, the storm is coming. Maybe it will pass on by doing minimal damage for a day or two. Maybe it’ll be a category five storm.

It’s around this time when my coffee consumption starts rising. Two cups are average. Three cups could just mean it was a busy day. Four cups three days in a row means I’m fucked. And when I give in, it’s five all the way until we ride out the storm.

In the morning, I wake up and do tai chi, lift weights, and do a short yoga class. When I’m up to four cups of coffee during the day, maybe I don’t sleep as well. And maybe this means I don’t wake up as early. I’m a bit behind already, and I have to skip the tai chi and yoga. I might be more irritable than usual during my commute to work, and find it hard to concentrate on my book. The inane chatter of a conversation beside me on the streetcar that exists solely to just suck up the silence cannot be tuned out. And it’s fucking cold outside.

One thing I try to do is not indicate to anyone around me, especially in a professional capacity, that anything is wrong or different. I might just be a bit quieter. Might not seem myself. But I do not believe this is anyone else’s problem, and in no way do I have any desire to put my emotional distress on display to anyone that didn’t ask for it.

What I am in the process of doing during this initial phase is to make myself as invisible as possible. Perhaps not the healthiest way to deal with this, but we all figure out coping strategies. On the streetcar, I will press myself into the corner, willing my body to flatten and take up no room. I will walk home, no matter how damn cold it is, because walking means I can commute anonymously.

If it turns into a category five storm, I’m up to five cups of coffee a day. Not to keep myself awake, just to try to keep things sharp. Ride it out. By this point, my sleep has gone to shit, I’m hanging on, but barely. And there’s not a whole hell of a lot I can do about it.

You know what the scariest thing is about a category five storm? When you’re in it, it feels like this is my life now. I’m never going to get myself out of it. And I will keep trying to fit in smaller and smaller places on the streetcar, I will become quieter, I will try and make myself as invisible as possible.

Invisible, until I find myself very much alone. I am usually fine being on my own. I’ve spent a greater part of my life in this way. When I am on my average of two cups of coffee a day, I can accept that not everyone finds someone else to spend their life with. It’s just not in the cards for everyone. And I am truly okay with it. But when I hit five cups of coffee, my place feels that quite empty and quiet, where before it felt full of creativity and ideas. It’s where I fall asleep on the couch in the early evening, waking up in the middle of the night with all the lights on. Instead of a sanctuary, it’s more of just another place.

And the steady hum moving around in my brain that tells me I’m never going to get out of this. But then something else happens, another switch somewhere gets flipped back on. I come out of it, like every other time. It’s just usually a moment, an electrical connection is sparked between something in my brain and out there in the ether. A voice calls along and says I can become three dimensional again.

But just to be sure, I taper the cups of coffee. Four, down to three, and finally back to two.