Coffee and anxiety aren’t really about caffeine or nerves. They are stand-ins for adulthood itself.
Adulthood is the moment you realise:
- You need something just to function
- Rest feels earned, not automatic
- Comfort and damage can come from the same place
Coffee becomes the adult version of a security blanket, and anxiety becomes the background noise of trying to “do life properly”. Together, they form a quiet shorthand for being grown: constantly stimulated, slightly overwhelmed, and still showing up anyway.
It is hard to open up about the general struggle of life when you’re growing up, when all you are doing is daily tasks just like everyone else. Coffee and anxiety become the not so obvious euphemisms for passing complaints and cries for help.
“I need a coffee”
Something most people have said. There is a chance it’s just the standard want for a coffee, or the possibility is that it is the explanation of tiredness, falling behind or confusion for life. Coffee is the momentum for life and using the concept is a way for adults to whine and moan about how stressful, fast and overstimulating life can be.
Coffee is less about energy and more about signalling that you are participating in the system. It is not just something that’s consumed, it is performed. Treating yourself to a fancy iced coffee at a café, automatically makes you feel more put together. Holding a cup makes you look busy, capable, intentional and proof you belong is adult spaces. Saying “I haven’t had a coffee yet” is just an excuse for everything.
Anxiety is framed not as weakness, but as a side effect of caring. In adulthood you become aware of consequences, choices feel heavier and there is no clear answer, only options. Anxiety is what happens when responsibility meets uncertainty and coffee is what helps you keep moving through it.
The two come hand in hand with each other. Sometimes you stay friends with someone who is always tearing you down, but you’ve been friends for so long, so you just let it slide.
You can be cheated on and still stay or go back because they still make you feel loved. It is the same as drinking a coffee. Coffee makes you anxious, yet we drink coffee to keep up with lives that make us anxious.
The irony of coffee and anxiety is that we feel anxious if we are behind, so we stay caffeinated to try keep up, which then makes you anxious again. Yet, we keep doing both because stopping isn’t really an option. Acceptation is a necessity in adulthood.
No one ever teaches you how to be an adult. They just hand you a coffee and wait for the anxiety to kick in.
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