March 2024
I have become a tea person.
If you knew me a few years ago, I was NOT a tea person (or a coffee person or a drink person or any type of person that way.)
But I wanted to be a tea person. So bad. For some reason.
I had so many (seemingly) failed attempts. I didn’t know why I kept trying. Why I wanted to have tea. For some reason I kept insisting on trying over and over, buying things, and donating them away.
I would take a break. Tell myself that this was crazy, silly. A waste of time and a waste of money.
Yet, I would find myself trying again. Buying more things and then donating them away.
I can’t tell you why I wanted it. I didn’t have that “deep why” that is talked about to “get you through failure and keep you keeping on.” I actively tried to reject the idea. Multiple times. It just never went away.
In 2017, I bought a tea cup and saucer set on Ebay. I set them on my dining room table. On my counter. Tried to use them as storage throughout my house. After a few months they just never felt right. I gave them away. And told the idea to go away for now.
In 2019, I tried again with some herbal teas. Chamomile – no thank you. The ginger peach I used to love at Panera Bread back in 2010 – it didn’t taste the same. Various sleepy time teas – definitely no thank you. Too herbal and medicinal. Again, I told the idea to go away again. And it did, for a time.
In 2020, I found Tea Time Magazine. My other half gave me a subscription. Bought a tea cup online in a monthly collection – January. I actually used it a few times (and not just in January.) I left it out to look at it and store special things in. Felt like maybe I was doing this tea thing. Told my dreams “that was enough.”
In 2021, I bought some scones online. Also tried various recipes to make scones myself. Made a recipe I had made a decade ago, but it didn’t taste the same. I found I’m not a sweet scone person. Good to know, he got the remaining sweet scones in the freezer. (It always works out for him when I don’t like a certain food.) After a couple failed attempts, I told the inkling again “Okay that’s enough! I’m done.”
In 2022, I took my mother to tea at the O’Henry. I’d wanted to go for decades but didn’t want to go alone and wanted an excuse. My mother had moved close by and it was her first Christmas away from where she and I grew up. We went to an afternoon tea. And she got the bug.
In 2023, we went to O’Henry again for tea at Christmas. Two local tea places for afternoon tea. The local tea blend shop for herbal and other blends. I asked for tiered tea trays for Christmas. My mother had a small two cup Le Creuset tea pot she gifted me. And I started using it daily in the afternoon.
In 2024, I hosted my mother and stepfather for a Valentine’s tea the weekend before Valentine’s day. Three sandwiches, berries, scones (bought from a wonderful local bakery because I know my limits), desserts and multiple types of teas.
I make my herbal blend (usually fruit forward) each morning to sip. He makes either green or white tea. I make us a pot of herbal to wind down in the evening.
Tea has become such a part of my life now. So I think back to all those attempts.
I could tell myself two different stories:
First story: “You knew what you wanted. Why didn’t you keep going? Why didn’t you just keep pressing through so you could have gotten to this spot in 3 years instead of taking 8 years where you denied it along the way.”
Second story: “There was a reason it happened this way. Sometimes things take time and trial and error. Sometimes there is nothing to push through and nothing to overcome. Sometimes just the act of living and working with the dream and desire – and telling it not now – is what is needed to bring it about.”
I like the second one. It’s kind, it’s honoring myself and my journey along the way. It doesn’t make anything bad or good, just let’s me live my life in my own time and pace. I make the choices. Not some schedule. Doesn’t have that pressure of “go, go, go, do, do, do!”
Because
Saving time is not the point; living well is. – Alexandra Stoddard
Let’s live well. Live our own way. Live in our own time. Nothing you need to do or schedule…
Table laid for Valentine’s Tea with red place mats, gold chargers, and tiered tea trays filled with macarons, brownies, berries, tomato soup, grilled cheese sticks, cucumber lemon sandwiches, turkey sandwiches, scones with clotted cream and jam.