Our Coffee Maker is a Metaphor

When Jeremy and I got married, almost 13 years ago, we got a nice coffee maker as a gift. We both drink coffee almost every day, so it gets used a lot. It has been through 5 moves and thousands of cups of coffee.  It isn't the fanciest coffee maker. In 13 years there has been quite the technological advancement of coffee makers: the fancy ones that grind the beans, the ones that store the coffee in a reservoir to keep it hot, the fancy K-cup ones. But we like our regular old coffee maker. 

The white plastic isn't so white anymore. Its stained, a sort of antique brown now. The cup measurement numbers are the side are fading. The glass is scratched and not shiny anymore. We lost the charcoal water filter in a move. But it still makes a nice hot cup of coffee.  Recently, after a cycle in the dishwasher, the lip of the pour spout broke off. Now it is a jagged piece of glass where you pour the coffee.  My instinct, possibly swayed by our society that thinks everything is disposable, was to throw it out and insist we buy a new coffee pot. I even said to Jeremy, "Whelp, looks like we are going to have to get a new coffee pot!" He reminded me that the rest of the coffee maker works just fine. The chip doesn't keep it from making coffee, and as long as there aren't any loose shards that could end up in our coffee, it isn't a big deal. I thought about what he said, and put the coffee maker back down, and proceeded to make a pot of Caribou Coffee. My current favorite is Mocha Java.

https://shop.cariboucoffee.com/asp/shop/detail.asp?c=1&p=75

Anyway, we drank our coffee and went about our day. That was a month or so ago, and every time I use the coffee maker and pour that wonderful, steamy cup of coffee I recall that conversation. Yesterday, on my way to work, on a particularly cold morning, I had a sort of epiphany.  The Coffee Maker is a Metaphor. Depending on what is happening in your life at any given moment, it could stand for a lot of things. For me, right now, given things going on personally and for those around me, it stands for relationships and jobs.

My marriage is our coffee maker. It is, in fact, exactly as old as the coffee pot.  It is stained from hurtful words spewed in frustration. Our wedding bands are scratched from yard work, camping fun, and worn down from years of being worn on our fingers.  Our bodies cracked and chipped in the form of wrinkles, laugh lines, broken bones, surgeries, miscarriages, the beauty of childbirth, extra pounds from baked sweets, scuffed knuckles from building projects with the kids and remodeling. Just like the charcoal filter, the brand new giddiness of first love has vanished, lost amongst children, pets, jobs, arguments and everyday life. But just like the coffee maker, I am hanging on tight to my husband. We know how each other works, which buttons do what, and that we can rely on each other. The stains and scars and cloudiness of our marriage are far outweighed by the love, memories, fun, excitement and passion that we have found getting those imperfections.

Our coffee maker is perfectly capable of making a crappy cup of coffee. Full of grounds, too strong, too weak, too bitter, too bland. But if we buy a good brand of coffee, not the crappy store brand, carefully put the filter in, and measure it out just right, the coffee is fantastic, steamy, warm...perfect. In a marriage, if you neglect your spouse, throw mumbled compliments and I love you, and don't pay attention, your relationship is going to be full of grounds, too strong or too weak, too bitter or too bland. But if you take a moment each day to carefully caress your spouse's face, hold their hand, look into their eyes and let them know how much you love them, you are going to a marriage that is fantastic, steamy, warm..... perfect.

Our world needs to slow down, stop throwing things away when at first glance they aren't perfect. We need to take a deeper look, and find the beauty and security in those comfortably worn people around us.