Decaf, Please

A ridiculous request in mid-life

Do you have decaf tea? I always wince when I ask. But these days I have to. My body is changing.

Sometimes I get a laugh in response. Why would you come into a coffee shop and ask for decaf? As if the cultural societal norm of sitting inside for a hot drink is exclusive to those who can tolerate caffeine.

Sometimes I get “of course” and told the tea bag in the pot is decaffeinated when it is not. Sometimes I can’t tell in the moment. It’s not often the taste that gives it away, although I may have my suspicions.

See, I will know the tea you gave me wasn’t decaffeinated some time later.

Maybe it will be in the evening, when my usual bedtime rolls around without me even noticing, when I am hunched over my laptop in the dark wrapped in some last minute task I was inspired to do or when I am babbling to my partner in bed late into the night, him begging for me to please, please shut up and go to sleep.

Perhaps, instead it will become apparent when I wake spontaneously at 3:47am the next morning, and find it impossible to get back to sleep. My thoughts bouncing around in my head like a ping pong ball with my eyes more effort to keep closed than to leave open staring into the darkness.

I could also find out days later when I get the caffeine withdrawal headache, or my new favourite acid reflux — a consequence of plummeting estrogen paired with caffeine loosening the sphincter that closes my stomach. Pain as a price I pay for a sin against my body that I didn’t knowingly commit.

I know it doesn’t make sense. There isn’t even that much caffeine in tea. Half as much as in an average cup of coffee and many people can enjoy multiple coffees a day, well into the afternoon. But not me, I’m afraid. Perimenopause is here and my body is turning on me in tiny ways, throwing up a variety of symptoms throughout and across my menstrual cycles. A sign that at 37 I am most certainly ageing. Clearly, in mid-life my body can’t handle things that it used to not only tolerate but thrive upon.

Once upon a time, caffeine was productivity; it was focus. But now for me it is anxiety, sleeplessness and quite certainly, has the opposite and less desirable effects than in the past. There is no going back.

So, please, I haven’t asked for a decaf tea to be difficult. I don’t mean to throw you off to find the button on the till that you have long forgotten about or trouble you to dig out the dusty old tea caddy that barely gets opened. I ask for it because I need it. So please, a tea. But decaf, yes please.

Do you live the decaf life?

Has Perimenopause ruined anything you love?

Come join me in the comments I would love to hear your stories.

If you enjoy Distracted and would like to support my writing, you can take out a paid subscription for unlimited access to all my posts. (My posts usually go behind the pay-wall after 1 year.) An annual subscription is less than £1 a week. You could also treat me to a coffee (or a cup of tea! - decaf of course) – for a one off £4 payment, or you could simply like and share Distracted. Either way, your support means the world to me. Thank you so much for reading Distracted.