I’ve been drinking coffee since grad school, but didn’t become a coffee drinker until six years ago. Difference? Drinking is the customary cup with anytime eggs or chugging a carafe to survive an all-nighter (or recover from one). Drinker is welcoming the magical black oil into the complete rhythm your life, and even establishing standards. Like me? I turned my back on the mocha-frappe-grande-fat-ilicious concoctions AND the gas station emergency sludge when I crossed over.
But my coffee attraction is little about the caffeine and all about the ritual. I felt such the Big Girl whisking into a café as a launch to my day. Recently, though, that Big Girl banner fell down to expose Big Pain in the Ass. So I bought a $10 coffee maker and all the fixins and saved myself some dough, some gas and plenty of my precious time.
And there’s been a lot of this lately. Paring down. Sifting through to the essentials. Getting together with girlfriends, for instance, doesn’t have to involve a box office, exotic menus and swanky cocktails; somehow I figured out that the same great conversation comes with dollar shots, blue jeans and chain restaurants.
I treasure my childless-husbandless-eventless ME time with a turtle sundae, "Law & Order" and blogging, just as much as when I thought it was mandatory to have pedicure surgery, 11-ingredient facial masks, scented baths and tropical sugar scrubs, wine and an artsy-fartsy chick flick.
My children, too, benefit from this simpler version of me. Just Friday evening we invited a dozen little girls to come over and play (yes, a dozen, as in 12). I pointed them to the yard, the toys in the basement, Disney Channel, junk food, and our dog, Hershey. The girls did not require my clipboard and activity schedule. (Okay, okay. I did make personalized princess t-shirts, but that was ONLY to help them remember names. Really. Really!)
The best part about this new K.I.S.S. approach is that I’m not even trying. I’ve not sought “101 ways to simplify my life,” necessarily. My habits have just begun to refine themselves. Who’da thunk? Much like I never would’ve imagined a three-day weekend without a road trip or a blow-out barbecue. I wouldn’t have thought “easy” could be a good thing, maybe because I’d gotten so damn good at “complicated” …?
In any event, I’m ending here. Gonna brew a fresh pot of coffee so Hershey and I can enjoy this childless-husbandless-eventless afternoon of doing a whole lot of nothing.
