The Death of Diet Coke

It is with a heavy heart that I must bid a final farewell to my beloved Diet Coke with Lime. It was a sudden, tragic parting, but perhaps one for the best. When the doctors said – no caffeine and no carbonation before your surgery (or after for that matter) – they had no idea, I’m sure of the devastating blow they’d dealt me (or my local Sonic drive thru). A die-hard caffeine addict and Diet Coke with Lime aficionado, those were the most brutal words I could have heard. Is my health and my weight loss really that important to me? Am I willing to just say goodbye to a twenty-five year relationship…one that has seen me through high school marching band, college all-nighters, graduate degree 2am papers, and the work-a-holic lifestyle I’ve slipped into since then? Could this really be the end?

Alas, my desire to be around for the next couple of decades and see my children grow up had to take precedence over my addiction to this lime-enhanced nectar of the Gods. So with a heavy heart – and an unbelievably aching head, shaking hands, and total lack of any energy – I broke with Diet Coke with Lime. Indeed with all caffeine and carbonation (an ode to my last coffee is forthcoming). It was, to say the least, a most painful separation.

Now, a mere 6 days of agony later, I am able to raise my head towards the light without fear of it imploding from the wicked withdrawal headaches, and see a brighter future. One without addiction – without dependence on one so cold, and unfeeling. Yet, it is also a world without the bubbly anticipation and flavor that I had come to take so for granted.

But I must move forward…and offer only this last, wistful look back at a beverage that had so defined me for over two decades. Farewell, farewell…parting is such sweet sorrow…