Reuniting With An Ex

I’m feeling a bit uppity today. An old love recently re-entered my life. We had a heady relationship in my early 20s – lots of late nights and early mornings. It was an exciting, frenzied time when I felt focused and more like myself than ever before (and, in some ways, ever since). When we had to break it off in my mid-20s, I was having heart palpitations and had become increasingly miserable. My too-much-of-a-good thing relationship had run its course. It was time for me to walk away and find my way in the adult world. For a long time I didn’t miss my love; I didn’t dwell on what was in my past. Then the spring of 2009 happened and fate brought us together again.

Yes, my old love, caffeine, is back giving me joy and, uh, alertness like I haven’t had in many a day/month/year/decade. So I know you’re asking: how could a common chemical make you into a swooning teenager again? Don’t you remember how badly it all ended?

This spring I was facing a Sophie’s Choice type of dilemma. You’d probably have done the same thing.

My lifelong spring hay fever kicked in with a vengeance. I was housebound, told to stay in air conditioning and limit physical activity. I was constantly sleepy and a wee bit cranky (ok, a lot bitchy). My whole life consisted of the inside of my house, the interior of my car and my basement work cubicle. The outside world was dead to me –doctor’s orders.

The Herculean challenge was finding an anti-histamine I could tolerate. Like Goldilocks, one made me very sleepy, another made me very uptight, and the third made me as stupid as bucket of sand. I missed work, stared off into space and wondered if I my skin would become so pasty that I would be translucent.

I worked with the allergy clinic on options and we kept coming back to one drug that had helped me in the past but just wasn’t keeping me coherent this time. (see here for more about my prior adventures) We decided to ditch the generic and go with the name brand even thought I had to pay more for it. Bingo! I got a bit sleepy but not all moronic like I had with the generic. Suddenly I could take part in the outside world. I abandoned my plans to live as cloistered nun and rejoined society.

But the sleepiness, while not debilitating, was an undercurrent in my life. Then one day at work I filled a cup with ice and poured in a fully-sugared Coca Cola. In about a half hour I swear I could see the face of god and recite Shakespeare. I was witty, jovial and, most surprising, focused. It was the focus that I had been lacking for, what, months? Years? Now I recall how I got through college.

I need to be careful how much time I spend with my old love. Too much and I am blathering my way to edginess and spending late nights looking for life’s answers on my bedroom ceiling – fully awake.

I see where we went wrong all those year ago. We spent too much time together. By finding that right balance I think we will be a wonderful couple once again.