The Weight Of It

When I was a just a wee little kindergartener, my Mom, out of complete desperation, used to take me to the Sonic Drive-Thru everyday before my afternoon class with Mrs. V. One corn dog, small fry and a small Mountain Dew. Yep. Every. Single. Day. This is the ONLY thing I would eat for lunch before bopping off to play with The Letter People at Pershing Elementary School Afternoon Kindergarten. Oh now let’s not get all Judgey-McJudgeykins. My Mom was all kinds of awesome and not only had a career, but she also made home-cooked meals with vegetables and all of the good stuff. And she crushed baking and could have opened her own pie shop – skills I most certainly did not inherit. The fact of the matter is, I had some food issues. Get in line, right?

I was the pickiest eater on this side of the Rocky Mountains, and I was also the third child in a very busy family. I never drank a drop of milk- it made me erupt in eye-watering gags. I pushed every piece of meat around on my plate until it became very obvious I would rather turn to ash and dust before sawing into that thing and chewing it up. No one forced me to stay at the table and finish my plate, thank you Jesus, or I would still be sitting at that table pondering over a moldy piece of pork. I loved Pop-Tarts and Cream of Wheat and those fruit bars with cream strips running down the middle of them and sometimes I loved this cheesy rice my Mom made unless I thought too much about the chewy mushrooms, but mostly I hated everything, too. Love/hate, love/hate, love/hate. That food dynamic started very young.

Now, we can tear this all apart psychologically, and we can all know I was not anorexic or bulimic (big, scary words- a painful struggle many I love endure), but I was terrified of food. I announced, at the age of 8, my greatest wish was to have one pill a person would take in the morning to meet all nutritional requirements, no eating necessary. Food confused the hell out of me. I understood the basics of vegetables and nutrition, kind of, but I really loved gummy peaches and I was an animal fanatic and had a hard time wrapping my brain around the meat on my plate with the smell of the “rendering plant” (small town Nebraska) wafting in through the screen door. I liked steak, sometimes, but that cow’s lashy brown eye was always staring at me…….and yet I could eat a corn dog because it tasted like sweet fried bread. Food irony.

Then I became a Mom. If food was hard before the babies, now it was a f*cking nightmare. Parenthood has mostly been a traumatizing 15-year class in grocery shopping.

Which store should I go to, what are we having for dinner, who needs a diaper change in the middle of Alberston’s, please don’t judge the Oreos in my cart, stop crying-please, please, here, just watch Dora on my phone and no I don’t think you should have that kind of cereal but considering you ate sand once, sure, throw it in, yes, we need lettuce and batteries, wait, Daddy eats Paleo and you don’t like meat or vegetables and that girl on Facebook says we should eat kale and the baby likes only crackers and the other two eat only chicken strips and hahahahaha, “oh yes, I will enjoy every moment with them”—she says with wild eyes and then throws herself to the cold, tile floor in a weeping heap as a can of Spaghetti-O’s falls on her head to remind her to be grateful for what she has. 

That pill I mentioned earlier sounds like a pretty damn good idea, doesn’t it?

Good grief, I do not have this completely figured out even now. I have a family of 6-each eat differently and the mixed messages from social media make me want to scream most days. Keto, Paleo, Gluten-free, vegan, raw vegan, vegetarian, “I grow my own food”, “I eat only bacon”, “my kids are smarter than yours because I make my own bread”, sugar-free, soy-free, joy-free……you know the list. However, at the ripe age of 40, I did finally became a vegan. I think my little childhood animal-loving heart had always been trying to whisper to me. This is not a recommendation I would give to many- it is not for the faint of heart particularly when one has non-vegan members of the family. But for the first time in my entire existence, food makes a teeny bit more sense to me because I trusted my own instincts. That lashy brown cow eye sits peacefully on my heart and food tastes good, like really good. I’m paying a little less attention to the 29 different kinds of diets on Facebook and the supplements and the “shoulds” and the “cautionary words”. I pay attention to my own body and, mostly, where my food comes from until the nights I need to order pizza (cheese-free, we call it “depression pizza”) then I hug the delivery man with tears in my eyes and whispers of undying love. I get it- you eat better, you feel better, your beautiful brain works better, you don’t scream as much and your spirit thanks you. I want my kids to get it, too. I’m trying.

Good morning, my hungry friends. Eat up. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo