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Back in the days when I worked as a barista, I used to loathe the word “calibration.”

“Calibration” meant something had gone very, very wrong with our espresso machine.

Our shots would pull too long or too short, the grind would be too fine or too coarse, the water pressure would be too weak or too strong… essentially, something somewhere would be just intangibly (and annoyingly) “off.”

Then the “tech” would arrive to fix it an hour later — an hour of explaining to an endless lineup of caffeine-crazed people that, no, I’m sorry, no lattes or mochas, we’re… “down.”

And apparently? There was no worse down to be. My normally polite customers would turn into petulant children when denied their five-dollar drinks.

And the “tech”? He would spend an hour tightening screws, only to announce that he didn’t know what was wrong. Then he’d head out on another call, promising that he’d be back in a couple of hours to work on it again.

This is how I learned to fix espresso machines.

Desperation.

And soon, there was no force majeure of calibration that I could not fix. I learned to predict the impact of a particularly humid day or long rush of drinks on our temperamental La Marzocco, and head it off with a rinse of the groups or a draining or a long pour (or perhaps an ancient Celtic chant or cheap hockey check.)

Hell, I don’t even remember what worked.

But I knew then. Because no trick of mis-calibration was going to rob me of my sanity. Especially not at the hands of an unnaturally-tanned soccer mom who’d apparently been denied nothing in life… except her Caramel Macchiato.

But it’s hard to fix things when you don’t know what’s wrong.

When your calibration is off, and you can’t figure out quite why.

That’s really the biggest thing I learned — that mystery was the great enemy of solution. If you could solve the mystery, your life would be rolling in the doppios once more.

If you couldn’t, you’d have no choice but to put your green apron over your head and run for cover.

I think my calibration is off right now. And though I know why to some degree — to a large degree, really — all the things I’ve done to try and fix it have fallen flat. I have a lineup of my normal emotions and experiences waiting to be felt and lived out, and yet I have to keep saying to all of them…

“You know? Not today. Things are just a little off. But I’m working on it.”

I wish I could work it out quickly, but at the end of the day, I’m well aware that I’m far more of a challenge than even the most fractious espresso apparatus.

These days, I don’t know what will knock me off course. It could be hormones or illness or sadness or grieving or frustration… or the absence of any feeling at all.

Apathy. That’s a serious, serious mis-calibration for me.

I’m never one to feel nothing.

But sometimes, right now, that’s about all I have going on. It’s probably a defense mechanism, but that doesn’t feel like much of an excuse. It’s like refusing to look in a mirror because you don’t like what you see; how you look won’t change because you refuse to face yourself, but at least you don’t have to deal with it right then.

And it seems like not dealing is how I’m dealing.

I don’t like being unsettled.

I don’t like being unnerved.

I don’t like feeling weak.

I don’t like complaining.

I don’t like being sad.

I don’t like not knowing when things will change.

And I hate that I keep overreacting to things, I hate that I keep making stupid mistakes that I can’t explain or justify at work and at home, I hate that I keep not living up to my expectations and my potential, and especially — especially! — I hate that I keep losing track of how I’m supposed to feel… how I would normally deal with the simplest things.

I miss the days when the solution was a quick one, and I could get the lineup of drinks back underway in a matter of minutes.

Because it’s been months now. And I’m afraid that I’ll go so long like this that I won’t even remember normal anymore.

Granted, normal IS different now.

But calibration can’t elude me forever.

Because I wouldn’t even know what “tech” to call to get me out of this mess.