The Trouble With Being a Writer...

Today I spilled my coffee.  It was sitting there, scalding hot, frothy and inviting, smelling of rich hazelnut and knowing better I still took the first sip, feeling it singe the inside of my lower lip, an immediate warning that it was far too hot to start drinking.  Feeling a slight dejection in the realization I'd have to wait, I slid the cup into the passenger side cup holder and turned up the radio.  It was a morning ritual to drink the coffee as I began the content creation for the day while sitting in my office in front of the computer.  I looked forward to it every morning.

 I nearly forgot it was there in the less than mile drive back to my garage, but on the meandering left turn towards my house I saw the flash of the cup tipping, ever-so-slightly, then teetering on it's edge, then finally flip completely, lid bouncing to the corner of the passenger floorboard, spilling the dark, rich liquid all over the ground, the coffee bubbling, steaming, and pooling on the floor.  Only a few sips remained in the sideways cup.  The smiley face sticker on the lid almost mocked me.

And sitting there, pulled over on the side of the road, I felt tears sting my cheeks.  I was crying.  And not  because I have an unhealthy fixation on the drink or it's delightful caffeinated effects, but because it was the first time in nearly a week I'd had a moment inside my own life.  And however lame, it brought me back to planet Earth.  My planet Earth.  And then laughter escaped my lips because I realized how ridiculous it all was and that in that moment I could describe the incident in detail, what I saw as the cup overturned, the smell that overwhelmed my car, and overwhelms it still.  And it was a cup of damn coffee.  Enough already.

That's the trouble with being a writer.  You spend so much time writing about the world sometimes you forget you're a person that actually lives there.  I did end up getting my caffeine fix... and a lesson about crying over spilled coffee.