I Don't Want To Eat By Myself Anymore

So come to my place and let's eat together instead. Details about that at the bottom.

If we're going to make this blog a safe space to focus on happy, positive things, I think I need to be open with you guys first. To move forward, it is important to at first acknowledge. Behind the happiness veil, there is some bullshit going on.

Let's start this relationship from a genuine and honest place, shall we?

I've been experiencing a lot of sadness lately. And eating every meal by myself is not helping.

Food has always been a really important part of who I am. I love food. I love eating. I love exploring other worlds through tasting new things.

More than that, my family ate a home cooked dinner together every night. We'd use that time to talk about our days. Sometimes we'd watch a popular TV show. We sat at the kitchen counter or around the dinner table, but definitely not on the couch or in separate rooms. I could ask my mom what time dinner was, what she was making and then smell the savory aromas as I did my homework upstairs. Food meant family.

In college, this growing together around food continued with my roommates. These roommates are still some of my best friends. We would cook for each other and eat together every night. We were each assigned a night to cook and rotated. It was just as special to share your food with the group as it was to try every one else's recipes. We'd even go on eating adventures as a group.

Eating together is such an intimate act. You see it throughout history and spanning cultures. You even see it in religion with the act of taking communion together as a symbol of your togetherness.

Recently, my appetite has almost disappeared completely. The idea of eating actually fills me with anxiety. I don't want food. I don't want to touch a pan. I'll usually end of ordering food, but  then it gets to my apartment and I just stare at it. It was made by a stranger with no connection to me. I have no connection to it. And no amount of tv can cause me to tune out enough while I stab at it.

I can't possibly be the only one who's eating alone all the time. Besides the biweekly-ish dinner with friends or on a date, I'm eating every meal by myself. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner.

When I first started making a little money and could treat myself to nice dinners, I was happy to go exploring by myself. I don't need someone to take care of me. I can do it myself. I'm comfortable in my own skin. The one thing I can't do for myself, however, is create company and companionship. I kinda need another person for that. Although it's great to treat myself to some gorgeous eating adventures, it really sucks when you do it by yourself all of the time. Always. Not just sometimes. All the time.

Eating alone just reminds me how the family I had fell apart. And it reminds me how much I miss my college friends and the years when I lived in the same freaking house as the first women to let me be me. It brings up how I'm not in love with anyone and don't share my space. It reminds me of when I wasn't popular freshman year of high school and I literally hid in the bathroom everyday during lunch, so that I didn't have to sit alone. All those wonderful associations I've had with food are now just highlighting where I have a huge void. 

This is really hard to talk about. My life has been incredibly wonderful. There have just been some things that I have avoided in favor of accentuating other things in hopes of creating a public persona that is better than who I am privately. I'm just done with protecting people that didn't protect me.

This is very woe is me. I understand. But I can't possibly be the only one who has felt this way? At least, I sure hope not. That would be depressing. 

New website. New me and you.

So. You are officially invited to my place to have dinner. Regularly. All you have to do is let me know you're coming. Yes, you, complete stranger.

I'm going to put some dates up on the Events page when I'll be hosting these dinners. Keep an eye there. Show up. I'll feed you well.