Day 561: My name is Carolyn, and I'm a coffee addict

I've started drinking coffee. This might not be a big deal to all you who are hooked up to a caffeine IV drip, but to to me it's pretty apalling. Let me explain a bit of history: I worked at Starbucks all the way through University. It was five long years cloaked in a god awful green apron with ground coffee in my hair and chocolate syrup underneath my fingernails. Five years of throwing out day old pastries and talking ad nauseum about the decaffienation process. Five years of humouring people who seemed to think that the more words there are in front of their drink the more important they become - kind of like degrees after a name, only instead of Jane Smith, MSC, PhD, it's Jane Smith, Double-tall-non-fat-easy-foam-half-vanilla-half-hazelnut-108 degree-pumpkin-spice-latte. It actually wasn't a terrible job at the time, but it did breed a certain disdain for the fancy pants coffee set.

And now I am one of them. I skulk in shame in the line at Starbucks every single morning. It might be forgiveable if I just ordered a plain old coffee, but I don't. My drink comes with adjectives. I can barely look at myself in the mirror. And I blame Maddie.

Before Mads I never drank coffee. I never had grey hair. I never considered anything past 10:15pm "staying up late." I never gave two seconds' thought to my pension plan or the interest rate on my credit card. Now I do all of these things. It's like I've become a grown up or something.

But then again, before Mads I never went outside just to kick through a pile of leaves. I never enjoyed an episode of Sesame Street over a shared snack of apple juice and Goldfish crackers. I never played hide and seek under the kitchen table in the middle of the afternoon. Funny that it took growing up to be able to act like a kid again.