Coffee and Tea: Yin and Yang

Today I am bringing you another bloggers tea adventures.  This is Sheryl who also has a love for coffee.

After months of living in a hospital, you learn to appreciate the mundaneness of certain everyday routines. For example, I see my shower every night as daily luxury. A symbolic washing away of the day’s dirt, and feeling like a new person upon stepping out. So it is with consuming certain liquids.

I am both a tea and coffee drinker, but their symbolic similarities end in their liquid states. Coffee is my morning delight, a welcoming boost of clarity, a yang to match the rising of the sun. I enjoy the aroma and flavour, and down the elixir in appreciative sips. The only time I am unable to stomach this is when I’m feeling terribly unwell.

Tea on the other hand, is how I end my day. A calming closure, a yin to match the fading in of the stars. After the dinner plates have been washed, and when I’m all clean and clad in my nightgown, I brew myself a cup of tea. I sit down to enjoy its warmth, while indulging in a few squares of chocolate. I believe in ending my days on a sweet note. To me it represents a day well lived, and is a reminder that “the day has ended. All is well, or will be okay”. It is my way to wind down a normal day, which is a blessing by the way.
Enjoying My Cup of Tea in Various Company

It doesn’t matter whose company I’m in while drinking tea. If the company is awful, sipping on my cup of tea still brings me pleasure. It is a quiet grounding force, and a fourth dimension – public, yet private. I am in my own element. Sometimes the company is lovely and we’re all drinking tea together. This always produces a warm, fuzzy feeling. How can you drink tea with people at the end of the day, and harbour any ill will towards them?

On days when I’m all alone, having a cup of tea in silence is comforting, and I drink in the solitude with joy. It goes hand in hand with quality me time, as I get lost in health articles, books, or something else. It is a solo meandering with no fixed destination, the only time of the day where I actually don’t feel guilty for not being ‘productive’. (I’m working on undoing that harmful way of thinking!)

Daily Rituals are Personal Cultures

My day is incomplete or off-kilter without my coffee and tea routines. Beyond the physical benefits, they also represent events within me. Instead of a mass, annual celebration such as Christmas, they are daily, private ones. The celebration of a new day and fresh start, then a festival of gratefulness and reflection. The content within each day is ever changing, but these self-created rituals tie them together for life.

Meet Sheryl:

My name is Sheryl, and I live with a host of chronic illnesses. I have had a mini stroke at 14, multiple blood clots, a gore-tex band for a heart valve, seizures, scars all over my body from various surgeries and more. I would like to share my experiences with you, in hope that it raises awareness on silent disabilities, and to let others know that they’re not alone in this.

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