As I was unloading the dishwasher one morning this week, I noticed that my very favorite coffee mug was stained on the inside. Yeah, it's a little bit of an odd observation. BUT. This coffee mug is one of the first ones I bought with Ben after getting married 8 1/2 years ago. We bought two of them, both brown, with pink on the inside of one, and blue on the inside of the other.
I fully realize that my pregnancy hormones may be to blame here, but the realization that my mug had stains made me weepy. Only old people have stained mugs! I stood next to the dishwasher holding my mug and staring at the inside with tears in my eyes. I can't believe we've been married long enough for our mugs to get stained. What am I going to do when these one day, inevitably break? Oh, I love my husband so much!
The morning (or evening) coffees and chai's that we've shared over the years are such a simple, almost mundane event that there really has never seemed to be a "specialness" about sipping a hot drink at the table together in the morning. In fact, as we've added children to our lives, it's rare that we even sit together to drink at the same time in the mornings. And yet, the stains somehow remind me of love. They remind me of this incredible man that I've chosen to spend my life with. They remind me that sometimes it's the simple things in life that represent our love and life together; things that I never imagined would even have meaning, like a stained coffee cup.
We are those "old" people with stained coffee mugs (but we really are still very much young). And I love it.
I wrote this while sipping on a hot chai tea latte in the above mentioned, stained coffee mug. My husband steamed my milk for me on the fancy espresso machine, teaching me how to do so for the umpteenth time. I'm sure I'll learn someday, but really, I just like that he does it for me and explains the step-by-step so patiently each time. He's by far the most amazing husband I could ever have asked for.
To finish in Ben's words: "So, you're saying stained coffee mugs equals love?"
Yes. Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying.
This is so beautiful, Jessica. Your love for Ben shines through so purely here, and it's so encouraging to see an "old" couple in you two whom Anthony and I would be very much honored to be like someday when our coffee mugs stain too. Because, yes, coffee and chai stains equal love. :)
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