Future Coffee
I've started a rigorous caffeine regimen: black tea at 5 AM, a tumbler of iced coffee at 7 or 8 AM, another coffee at 10 AM, and coffee again at 2 or 3 PM. I don't feel too anxious with this regimen, at least not more anxious than usual. A year ago, I used to drink around five or six glasses of coffee a day, and I ended up feeling on edge.
I don't drink caffeine after 4 PM.
My old psychiatrist often told me to sleep more. In my kid's newborn days, she made sure my partner and I both scheduled shifts for sleeping. We weren't always able to stick to this schedule.
In the original draft of my bio for our magazine's staff page, I originally included that I was a "disabled stay-at-home mom." I cut this phrase out, and I'm not sure why. I decided to leave this core of my life out. Irrelevant, I told myself.
I think caregiving is satisfying. I am also more tired than I have ever been, a condition I must quickly follow with, "But so worth it, I'm so lucky." Both true.
***
At eighteen, after I had dropped out of two colleges because of depression, I was told that I wasn't part of my family anymore.
Eighteen is a weird age. I did a stint at Stanford, then University of Wisconsin-Madison. I remember going to class to take a quiz, the letters wiggling and paper shining. I left most questions blank.
At Madison, I showed my roommate how to add pepperoni and extra cheese slices to Easy Mac, so the pasta tasted like a really cheesy pizza.
If you walk in a straight line north starting at UW-Madison Memorial Union across frozen Lake Mendota, you will reach a mental hospital. If you tell the mental hospital workers that you are a lost student, they will drive you back to campus.
I met a lot of nice people, both times. If I hadn't been losing my mind, I would have liked college.
***
I collect advice from mothers I meet who have good relationships with their adult kids. Show interest, one mom told me. So I'm trying to show interest.
Don't tell them who they should be, another mom said.
Sometimes I imagine sitting across from my adult kid in a cafe somewhere. She's talking to me animatedly, her coffee forgotten on the table. I don't know what she's saying, but I look at her and see all her younger versions. You're just as lovely, I'm thinking, as the day we first met.
***
When I was told I wasn't part of my family anymore, I was going through intense delusions. I can see how, in a moment of frustration and fear, somebody might say something they later regret. I was also told that I was possessed by the devil, interacted with little to none most days for months, and not always offered food.
I think some people believe people experiencing psychosis are transformed or less real, can be neglected without worry of repercussions. Sometimes people acted like they could say or behave however they liked, because they thought I was somehow less conscious than another person. But I could tell when I was being treated with hatred. And I remembered some of these moments later.
I ended up going back to Stanford.
I visited campus again with friends recently, about twelve years after graduating. It's a beautiful place, but I was surprised how much less stunned I was by its beauty, this time around. The beautiful place had become normal.
***
I'm going to start sleeping in more. I'll wake up an hour before my daughter wakes up, instead of two hours.
I'll get less done, but I'll be better rested for our day together. I think I can make up the time.
Photo: Cosmin Deaconu