Don't take my coffee away from me [#STB Coffee Prompt Week 73]

My mother told me that my grandmother used to give me coffee when I was a baby, wetting her index finger and putting it in my mouth. According to her, my little face showed that I enjoyed the taste and I would whimper when I didn't get any more.

Everyone who knows me knows that drinking coffee is part of the family, it comes from my ancestors and I have passed it on to my descendants. Coffee is the magic that unites us when we are in family counseling, it is in the afternoon snack, in the meetings with friends, in the office conferences, it is in our dawns, at breakfast and lunch, practically at every moment. It is like celebrating every event in life, like giving importance to every action.

When it was time to do homework at night, even as a child, coffee was the fuel for those long hours before an exam. At the university, it accompanied me in the early mornings of study, in the breaks, and in the chats with my fellow students. Coffee was my company and for that, I had an inseparable thermos, which was the custodian of that wonderful beverage.

Years went by, I became a professional, and coffee never failed. I remember that in 2009 installing an ERP, an administrative system for a group of companies, we spent three days without sleep and what kept us active and lucid to implement the solution was that source of energy called coffee.

We all know the goodness, and the benefits of coffee, but not everything lasts in time and nothing in excess is good. As the years went by, the body was degrading like everything else, we become wiser, but the body tolerates less. A person over 50 years old like me does not have the same resistance as when I was 21 years old.

When I was 40 years old I found out that I was hypertensive and that it was a chronic disease that I had inherited. Dad was hypertensive. Of my parents' six children, only I inherited the disease. This led me to change my habits to stay healthy. But I refused to change my usual way of drinking coffee. And I'm not going to lie to you, I also consumed alcohol and that was not good. I was making a lot of money and that led me to do crazy things. Boy at last.

One day my body claimed my abuse and took me to the hospital. That warning grounded me and made me follow the doctor's precise instructions. For my well being I was to give up alcohol, I was not even to drink it socially and I was to eliminate coffee. I flatly refused to give up coffee, it was in my genes and I would not give it up for anything in the world. The doctor understood me, he was also a big caffeine consumer and allowed me to continue drinking coffee, but to stop drinking the 17 cups a day. That I was overdoing it.

It was time to take life slower without giving up my source of energy. The doctor followed up with me regarding my chronic disease and my caffeine intake. At the end of the study, it was determined that I could have my coffee when I woke up, at breakfast, mid-morning, and until lunch. But after noon I was forbidden.

The reason, then, was that if I drank coffee in the afternoon, Mr. insomnia was present at night and that was fatal because my blood pressure values would skyrocket. Today, I am responsible with myself, I do not drink alcohol, I do not go to bed late, I exercise, I eat well and I drink my rich coffee every morning until noon. With those morning doses, I can be active, happy, and productive for the rest of the day.

They can take everything away from me, but never my coffee.