HOW TO REBUILD YOUR LIFE AFTER CATACLYSM: TWO

Too Many Painful Food Choices

Are you hungry?  You will be, eventually. 

And then food, meals, grocery shopping, eating out, dinner invitations, snacking, not eating, emotional eating -- there will be alterations.  And not just to your clothing.

Meals and families go together.  Eating is what we humans have in common, and it's a cultural touchstone.  It's comforting for most people.  It's the source of earliest and best aromatherapy.  It's soulful.  And when you become a widow, all that good, warm, comforting stuff of life feels totally gone forever.  Food issues hit almost every widow, and the hit arrives three to a dozen or more times a day, depending on whether you eat sit-down-meals or graze.

If you are a dinner or happy hour partier, now your date is gone.  This loss can be a heavy one to figure out.  From what I can gather, most widows fall off of many invite lists.  Ted and I were homebodies, and thus, I was spared that particular pain.  For some, it may mean being willing to make new friends, including other widows, widowers, singles, members of the new church you joined, etc.  It's going to take some time.   It may or may not ever stop being a source of grief pain.

When I first became a widow, I didn't eat all the beautiful, wonderful, loving food that was brought to me and my family from more people than I actually knew I knew.  Visitors ate it.  But, more than seven years later, I do remember the kindnesses.  In the beginning, I completely lost my interest in food, which is saying a lot for me.  I have been an emotional eater all of my life, so losing my interest in food was new.  It lasted a while, but not forever.  Then, I had to face some agonizing realities.

Ted and I grocery shopped together as if we were dating.  Actually, a trip to the grocery store in Arlington, Washington was what we did for fun, and we combined it with side excursions to the antique store, the feed store, the library.  In the grocery store, Ted was the gizmo inspector, and I was the dreamer.  He had to look at every gadget hanging from the shelf ledges.  I would leave him behind at times, even as he was narrating the gizmo packaging to me.  As I pushed the cart along, I indulged my weekly delusional thinking that I would buy ingredients and make them into yummy, complicated food through a process called following a recipe and cooking or baking.  That never happened, but it was our fun, this little weird entertainment called grocery shopping.  It's what we did.  Ted died, and it was gone.  

It was a very long time before I stopped asking my adult children to go to the store for me whenever they would visit.  I tried shopping on-line, and home delivery services -- anything to avoid the grocery store experience.  I don't remember when I snapped out of this avoidance.  I grocery shop now, and try not to look at gadgets hanging from shelf ledges, unless I want to develop an oak tree in my throat.  I also finally figured out that I do not do well with "ingredients" that have to be put together according to a recipe.  I buy whole foods, or heat up foods.  Maybe some crock pot foods.  That's it.

Eating out is not for me, unless I have a companion.  Now that I'm retired, I can ill afford dining out all the time anyway, so that problem is solved.  But for many widows, eating out is what she does and now her partner is gone.  Most of the widows I have talked with about food admit that they only get take out now.  A few have told me they love eating out alone.  I envy them, and wish it was that way for all of us. 

I do eat a periodic teriyaki chicken from Five Corners Teriyaki in Edmonds.  I can get a breast meat dinner that is huge -- enough for two meals -- for under $10 including tip and tax.  Most weeks, I eat chicken or turkey three or four days a week, and the rest is meatless.  So, Five Corners helps knock out two meat days out of four.  Winning!  My pancreas likes part-time vegetarianism, and it's easy on the budget.  I also like Amy's frozen bowls of Mexican recipes.  They are meatless but substantial.  I buy the sacks of salads that come with everything, including the little crispy things.  I refer you back to my comment about not doing well with "ingredients".  How long did it take me to figure all of this out?  About seven years, and counting.  I still throw away rotting food.

The how-to takeaway from my blog today:

• Food and how you get it, serve it, pay for it, plan for it is a complex, emotional and expensive transition for most widows.  There is trial and error galore.  Have patience and expect to be a learner.  You may have to let go of many patterns that don't fit your new life.  It takes time. 
• Food and the social implications of eating with others is likewise complex, emotional and expensive.  You may experience grief triggers for a long time related to the social connections that now may painfully fade.  It hurts when old, married friends start not inviting you places. 
• Your new life as a widow can offer an incentive to try new things.  DO IT!  Long-time married couples usually have food figured out as a couple and you now have an unsolicited opportunity to try new ways of feeding yourself.  By all means, do it. 
• If you are an emotional eater like me, stock your fridge with vegetables and fruits, whole grains, flavored and sparkling water....the good stuff that your cells actually need.  You want to be comfortable and you want to spend whatever money you do have the way you choose to, and not on the medical profession.
• It doesn't pay to try to be virtuous when it comes to food.  If you make up rules for yourself, you will break them more than if you just gave yourself permission to comfort yourself in any way that brings relief.  In my book, "The Widow Lessons" (Amazon), I talk about stocking my freezer so full of Ben and Jerry's that I don't visit Ben and Jerry near as often as I would if I banished my favorite treat from my kitchen in an attempt to be "good". 
• See food for what it is:  It probably means more to you than a necessary function of life.  It's probably tangled up with who you were when your beloved was alive, and by your side in this life.  It's probably part of your grief pain now.  It's something worth paying attention to. 

Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.  -  Mark Twain