In the beginning, there was our-ish food.

We would share a frozen Marie Callender’s frozen lasagna (family size).   I’d cook something or we’d just wind up snacking on stuff in the evenings after work.    If he worked late, I’d fix myself a really cheap cut of steak or just whatever there is.

Sure, we didn’t eat the same thing all the time.
Back when we were young, naive, and paid for delivery, the buck-toothed Chinese guy and the random Papa John’s delivery person knew our address by heart.

->>  Side note, the Chinese delivery guy did have prominent buck-teeth.  He was friendly and smiled at us, especially when we handed over a tip, but the notable physical feature was his teeth.   Hence, the buck-teeth guy.   Eventually, the Chinese place was renamed to Buck Teeth Place.    Jason would order the pepper steak with a couple of egg rolls and I was fond of my General Tso’s Chicken.

See?   We would have our separate types of food, but Jason would pick at my rice.   At the time, I didn’t like rice because it reminded me of little white maggots.   Now, I don’t mind rice so much.  But, sometimes, I poke it with the fork a couple of times to make sure.

Anyway, our relationship with Buck Teeth guy was cut short when, one day while wondering, I went past the restaurant and peered in to see our buddy sneezing on someone’s food before closing the container.   He wiped his nose on his sleeve and hurried out to the car.

After that, no Chinese.
No…     The place is still in existence, however.    Now, it’s called Wok ‘n’ Roll.   I’m not sure if Buck Teeth guy works there, but I don’t have any reason to find out.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that everything was pretty good, food wise.  Fattening with a side of heart burn and potential clogged arteries, but good.

Then, we decided to become healthy.  It wasn’t because we didn’t like Marie Callender’s lasagna.   We did, but because we didn’t want to spend our retirement years actually being retired.   We didn’t want to deal with diabetes, high blood pressure, and whatnot.  We wanted to be able to spend our older years enjoying each other’s company with sound minds and bodies.

Healthy eating to Jason meant salads, lean meat, and whole grains, and other reasonable choices that mainly steered away from the pre-package stuff.

Healthy eating for me was…  I don’t think I really had any idea of what it meant.     Growing up, my family didn’t go for the frozen food section a whole lot.  Rather, mom made spaghetti sauce with a cup plus of solid white sugar.  Grease made excellent gravy with some white flour and a bit of milk.  We drunk whole milk, generally had Frosted Flakes for breakfast, and cheap baloney sandwiches on whole white bread. You get the idea.

Since I really wasn’t sure what constituted as healthy besides an apple and had a distinct dislike for eating all leafy green things, I relied on the media to fill me in.  i.e.  Lean Cuisine, Healthy Choice, and Smart Ones.  You know… the ones that are overly packed with sodium, fairly expensive for what you get, and come out of the microwave frozen on one side and burnt on the other?  Yeah.   Those.

Learned a little more about the healthy thing and started to veer off those.   Sodium = heart attacks and whatnot which happen to run in my family.   That was counter to the goal and… and I’m not sure what I considered healthy after that.

I remember a time of jello and bocca burgers (vegan) which was okay.   Then it was Fiber One, Miracle Noodles, and Walden Farms.  Apples too, of course.  It was pretty enduring how Jason would hand-pick each one, looking for blemishes, before putting it in the bag.

What he ate became entirely different than what I ate.   I think it might have become a bit of an analogy to how we started being torn apart.  And, to make matters worse (or better, depending on how you look at it), I refused to make Miracle Noodles.  Jason wouldn’t eat them and I wouldn’t cook them.   But, if they wasn’t there, I don’t think I really ate anything.  I just dealt with it patting myself on the back for thinking of the ‘greater good.’   I had to be strong and, one day, everything would be that mythical stage of perfect.   I just had to hang in there.

Course, by this time, there was a whole lot of other stuff going on.  His job changed and then he got wrongfully fired.   At my inane insistence, he started college.  I returned to college myself and tried working for the cable company and midnight adjuncting which didn’t work out well.  Eventually, I just became an adjunct and loaded my plate with work that probably should have had mashed potatoes instead.

Money became a primary concern.  Well, maybe not money but the ability to provide.  I reasoned that what I didn’t take would be more for him.  Besides, I didn’t mind how my body had started to transform.   There was a transition time, that I attracted a lot of appreciate glances wherever I went, and it felt good.   After a lifetime of being overweight, the new way I was treated was astounding… and probably saved for another blog.

Now, I’m back.
I don’t mind having a salad or a piece of bread.   I drink milk and eat spaghetti.  I eat his Kind bars and his cereal and, sometimes, abundantly so for various physical reasons, good and bad, but I wonder if there isn’t maybe something more.

I will freely admit that I feel like I’m on shaky ground here.   Not with Jason, of course, but the whole situation.  I don’t like feeling like I’m not doing my share.  I feel like there’s a kryptonite block in my mind that’s… that’s doing something.   I’m not sure, but it’s something.

So, maybe I eat Jason’s food to feel closer to Jason…?  Like how we would split a lasagna or whatever else we got cheap and on a bogo way back in the beginning when things were new?

Maybe my personal insecurity is feeding into a co-dependency?

I don’t know.  I’m tired.

Nights.