I had two cups, both of them half oat milk. I didn’t feel much.

Then I felt everything.

My legs buzzed. I could focus until I couldn’t. I came back to the coffee machine and cleaned out the filter, dragging my finger along the uncovered plastic sides, collecting a thick glob of paste. I remember how good it smelled and realizing what I had done to myself. And I knew this feeling wasn’t normal, and that an equal concentration of water and coffee bean mattered when preparing a cup of coffee, and that my overwhelming urge to clean the entire house top to bottom was very much fueled by something other than myself, and I accepted that it was too late and I couldn’t do anything about it now. And I remembered how I hadn’t really had this much caffeine ever, since Stanford maybe, since Coupa, since damn those Iced Vanilla Lattes that were so good, God, I wish I had a library to sneak coffee into, I should go upstairs I should work.

I worked. I did a workout and didn’t feel tired, which scared me the most. I finished an entire assignment. I don’t really even remember what I did other than that. I have large blanks in my memory. Maybe I read? Yes. I read a play my girlfriend sent me in 20 minutes. I drank water. I forgot about what it meant to have an ‘appetite.’ I watched Youtube videos and tapped my bare feet against the wall behind my desk. I had discussions, in my head, with myself, about how this feeling is like being high, but opposite, but not completely opposite. I reached no conclusion on the perfect way to classify this feeling. I breathed and pressed my palm to my chest, but my heart didn’t feel like it was beating faster than normal.

At dinner, my family remarked on how odd I was acting. I agreed. I could barely hold a conversation. Instead of listening to my sister’s quip about her day, I imagined typing “how much coffee is a caffeine overdose,” but did so by painstakingly visualizing where each letter would be on my iPhone keyboard.

I didn’t feel tired until 2 am. I had had this coffee at 10 in the morning.

This was the most remarkable thing that has happened to me since the quarantine began.

[submitted on 4/27/2020]