Coffee Types, Hidden Plans, If Only, and Marriage Myths

KID AT HEART Yes, you need your coffee in the morning but only if it’s one part black, three parts fluffy crème brûlée creamer with a skosh of cinnamon, or one huge sleeve of hot cocoa mix you’ve hidden in your second desk drawer. You’re caffeinating yes, while holding on to that Sweet-Toothed Sweetheart inside of you. And God bless you for it. Sure, of course I’ll play hopscotch with you at lunch.

SOPHISTICATED SUIT You take pride in the fact that your Starbucks drink takes you a minute and thirty seconds to order. You love when coworkers stop by your desk to ask you about your bottle of Yerba Mate infused with ginseng that you’ve proudly displayed like a trophy under your office lamp. Any ogre can consume coffee like a Big Gulp. It takes an adult of refined sophistication to tailor caffeine intake like a well-crafted poem. You’re as serious about adulthood as you are about your triple pump, no-foam, upside-down, soy …

MR. GRIZZLY ADAMS THE ADULT You drink it black. Two days old if you have to. Brewed from your own pot that you haven’t cleaned since Christmas 2022. You’d drink the stuff from a rusted tin can if it fit in your car’s drink holder. Coffee is a means to an end, nothing more. Being offered frou-frou cinnamon swirl is an insult to your hard-earned chest hair. You strongly believe that everyone who spends $5 a day at Starbucks should be deported to France. You are Mr. Grizzly Adams the Adult. Get you a spreadsheet, talk radio, and a rock to sit on, and you’re a happy camper.

DIET DOER No coffee for you. Or high-fructose sugar syrup. No sir. You have your bottle of Diet ____. Zero Calories. No sugar. Three to seven times a day. Artificial sweeteners cascading through your veins as you pump out 60 minutes on the treadmill. If anyone is looking for you they can find you full-steam, full-throttle, rocking adulthood M–F (with some small crashes and lapses, and times you eat raw cookie dough in the dark, in-between).

HERBAL HEALTHER If it’s not a tea and it doesn’t contain spices from a hidden Asian island that only five people know how to get to, you’re not drinking it. Oh you’re an adult—a complex, mysterious one who listens to Yanni while meditating in the park.

THE NO-CAFFEINE I don’t know what kind of adult you are. And honestly, I don’t want to know.

If I had a quarter for every time I cried out to God for Him to show me the plan, I’d be in the Guinness World Records for my extensive coin collection. But I realize now that God saves us from seeing The Plan. Thank God He didn’t show me the syllabus for my 20s. If He would’ve shown me all the assignments my 20s were going to entail, I would’ve been crushed by it. I would’ve dropped this whole decade like a calculus class and never returned. So if you feel like right now you can’t see The Plan, maybe that’s to help you, not harm you. Maybe God is inviting you to trust Him when you can’t see the way ahead. Maybe you can still be at peace even when you can’t see the path. God’s not that bitter professor who drops a 75-page syllabus on your desk and tells you to look to the person to the right and left because one of you won’t make it past the first week. No, God is patient and loving. Slowly, in due time, The Plan will continue to be revealed. I promise. One page at a time. You’ll see. Some days you’ll read a whole chapter. Some months you’ll be stuck on the same sentence. God will be with you, guiding you, in both.

If only I had … More money. More connections. More charisma. More experience. More pull. More sway. A better degree. A job I loved. A smaller nose. A boss who understood. 15 less pounds. Their parents. Their skills. Their life. If Only … THEN I would make things happen. THEN doors would open. THEN I’d take risks. THEN I’d dream dreams. THEN I’d start really living. THEN and only THEN. But. Maybe it’s not the lack of money, experience, looks, or charisma that’s holding us back. Maybe the only thing keeping us from NOW instead of stuck waiting for THEN is … If Only … We complain that our dreams have been devoured, like a lion snuck into our house and ate them for dinner. When really our dreams are being nibbled away by a mouse that is smirking right in front of us. Dreams aren’t crushed by a lack of opportunity. Or money. Dreams are silently assassinated by distraction and wishful thinking. Most people stop dreaming before they even give themselves the time and permission to start. If only we’d stop with “if only.”

Growing up, I dreamed of one day being married. Because then I would never feel alone again. How can you feel alone when you’re having a sleepover every night? I dreamed of being married. Because then I would no longer feel insecure about my love handles or acne flare-ups. I dreamed of being married. Because then I would no longer want to eye-linger on all the risqué photos popping up in front of me online. I guess I dreamed of being Peter Pan because I was going to marry Tinker Bell. My wife would sprinkle pixie dust on me and I’d be ready to fly problem-free. Forever. I love my wife. I love marriage. But I realized fairly quickly that marriage doesn’t fix any of your problems. No, marriage actually puts a magnifying glass on how many problems you really have. We grow up carrying bags with our insecurities, fears, bad relationships, problems with our parents—you name it. Newly married and living in a small apartment is no place to store a luggage set full of your baggage. Begin to ditch those bags now. Marriage doesn’t fix your personal problems, marriage puts your problems on the stand and gets them really talking. If you go into marriage thinking it will fix you, that might be the biggest problem of all.