#2: Things You Really Don’t Need to Know (But I’m Telling You Anyway)

🖋️ By Faith

I love tea.
And coffee.
But mostly tea.
Like, religiously.

I drink five to six cups a day—don’t judge. This is hydration and therapy.

Fruit tea. Green tea. Rooibos when I’m pretending to be calm.
But my sacred brew?
Candy Cane Lane.
It’s a seasonal peppermint-vanilla celestial miracle—wrapped in nostalgia, comfort, and just the right amount of whimsy.
Smooth. Minty. Soft like a lullaby that knows how to bite back.

I drink it every morning while I read and journal.
It’s not just a routine. It’s a liturgy.

It started when I was twelve, the year my mom got really sick.
I’d wake up before the house did—before the grief fully settled in—and pour a mug of something warm. Usually too strong. Always comforting.
Then I’d sit by the window with a sunrise and a fermented vegetable cookbook I didn’t understand, turning pages just to feel like I was learning how to preserve something.

The mug is always warm before the world is.
The steam curls around the edges of whatever chapter I’m in—like punctuation made of breath.

Sometimes I think I don’t even know how to read without tea.
The words hit different when your fingers are curled around something warm.
It’s like a pact between the page and the cup:
Tell her something true. She’s listening now.

Oh, and—
I drink so much of it that Crest Whitening Strips are on subscription.
Automatic. Monthly. Like my sins are bleached on the 15th.

Some people talk about “quiet time” like it’s a virtue.
Mine is loud with paper rustles and the occasional gasp when a character dies, kisses, or betrays.
I’ve cried into my mug.
Laughed into it too.
It has caught more crumbs—and more feelings—than anyone I know.

Tea isn’t just a drink.
It’s how I hold the world without letting it scorch me.
It’s how I mark the chapters—of books, of mornings, of griefs that need gentle steeping.

So yes, I drink a lot of tea.
And I’ll keep drinking it.
Until the last page, the last drop, the last breath of steam.

📚☕
Still sipping,
Faith