In the 2010s, I drank a lot of coffee. Here’s my resolution for 2020 and for the 2020s: I am going to drink MORE coffee.
If you know me even a little bit, this probably doesn’t surprise you. Coach MK will never tire of telling people about how scandalized I was upon discovering that the Starbucks at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis did not open until 6 AM. She’s right - it’s a very on-brand story about me (even if I would argue that opening before 6 AM on a weekday amounts to nothing less than a brand
promise
for Starbucks).
So yes, I am already the first in line for coffee, often literally. The only difference in the next decade will be the unmitigated joy and lack of reservations with which I continue to get back in line every time I want to. My generation (you know, millennials, the ones who are going to save the world, you’re welcome!) has been lectured regularly about our expensive coffee habits (as well as other totally frivolous things like haircuts) and for a time, I subscribed to the notion that the less money I spent on coffee and the less coffee I drank, the better a person I was. To refrain from indulging in the one thing I wanted most at nearly any given time felt noble, like an act of discipline.
I renounced coffee for a week once, and briefly, I felt like Saint Francis of Assisi. But then, after passing through the mild caffeine withdrawal and coming out on the other side supposedly sharper and more awake and more alive, I still missed it terribly. The smell, the taste, the routine, and the way all of it put together felt like starting my day with an act of self-love.
To be clear, there is nothing quantifiable about this resolution; there will be no tracking involved, no logging of my daily coffees on any app that will then sell my data to a third-party company. I won’t be tallying anything at the end of the week, month, or year, and no part of me will want to compare my coffee consumption in 2019 with my coffee consumption in 2020. I don’t want
the most
. I just want more. Well, but I don’t want to be up all night. Actually, it turns out that I am somewhat sensitive to caffeine, which is inconvenient when all you want is more coffee. Some years ago, I began mixing my regular coffee beans with decaf coffee beans (so that I could have more coffee) and I remember someone once saying, “wow, I thought you were too much of a coffee snob for that.” I’d kind of thought I was a coffee snob, too, but if mixing regular and decaf so that I could have more was too gauche for the snobs, I was ready to renounce my snob credentials. Because more (as you’ve understood by now) is really what I am after.
I’m a run coach who knows we’re never really talking about the running, and I’m a coffee lover who knows that in this context, we’re not really talking about coffee, either. I want more coffee in 2020 because coffee is a source of comfort and centering. It’s one of the few things I routinely do for myself that isn’t strictly tied to optimizing my productivity and running my household. When I went to my first appointment with a new therapist a few months ago, I made time to stop at my favorite coffee place on the way, so that I would have something warm to clutch in my hands as I sat across from a total stranger and told her deeply personal things about myself. I was gratified to see that she, too, had her coffee next to her as we talked. So far, so good.
Ultimately, I want more coffee in 2020 because coffee is my love language. I love e-mailing someone a Starbucks card when they do me a real solid, because even if I can’t take them out for coffee to thank them, which would be my first choice, it feels like I’m expressing my gratitude in the most “me” way possible. I love being on vacation and roaming around in search of the first coffee of the day, either by myself or with my indulgent family in tow (I love my family even more when we’re all at a coffee shop together). I love making coffee for my husband; even when he’s on a no-caffeine streak, he’ll have a cup of decaf with me, I think in part because he knows I love having someone to have coffee with. I love it when someone visits me and I get to make them coffee in the morning when we all wake up (and then memorize how they take their coffee for all future coffees together).
Maybe the deep-down reason I want more coffee is that I want more opportunities to express love, for others and for myself. Much has happened this year, and one of the big differences in my life now compared with my life in 2018 is the abundance of opportunities to give and receive love. More of that, please, and pass the cream. Whatever you want more of in the coming year and in the coming decade, I hope you get in line for it with a big smile on your face just like mine. And whenever you are in the Boston area, write to me; if it is even remotely physically possible I will move heaven and earth to take you out for coffee. That's the Coach Sarah brand promise, right there. I promise, it will be for me just as much as it will be for you.
You are coached, you are loved, and you are winning at life.
Coach Sarah
