Let me tell you about my battle with my (emotional nutritional diet)

Song playing in the background while I write:

“Make It Better” by Anderson .Paak featuring Smokey Robinson

I rarely take up offers to go out to dinner because I’m a picky eater. People think I’m weird for turning down free meals. I don’t want to be that person, but unfortunately, I developed a specific palate designed around eating only for the sake of surviving. I’m actively working towards trusting that it’s okay for me to try new foods without feeling as though I’m wasting money. My pickiness doesn’t come from food allergies; I wish it were that simple. A majority of the things I don’t eat, I probably haven’t even tried. 

 Trying new foods hasn’t been easy for me. It’s never in my budget when getting full is my top priority. I seldom eat for pleasure. The only time I may eat for enjoyment is if I’m celebrating something that will bring me enough money so that I don’t feel guilty about spending money on the food as a reward. I’m aware that I’m extremely hard on myself. 

 This way of eating has become monotonous. Not having a large palate has been a stifling factor in some of my relationships. It’s hard to date when you limit what you are willing to eat. It doesn’t give the relationship an opportunity to evolve. When building new relationships, trying new foods is essential.  If you don’t explore new foods, eventually you’re going to run out of places to eat, and then what?

 I’ve reached a point in my life where I desire to explore new foods, for various reasons. One of those reasons is that eating to stay alive is a terrible way to look at food. I don’t want to feel as though every meal is associated with trauma (more on that later). I’m curious if my meals would taste differently if I were at peace with food. My health is another reason I want to change my eating habits. All the years of drinking soda and eating fast food and candy have come back to bite me in the ass. Literally. 

 The problem I now face is deprogramming myself from believing that every meal has to be a live-or-die situation. I want to believe that I can try new foods to add to my list of things I can to eat without feeling like I’m going to be punished by the universe for it. My biggest issue is not knowing where to begin.

 Some people think that healthy eating would be easy, since I live in Los Angeles, where I believe eating healthy is as trendy as supporting a Black Lives Matter protest. However, I grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, and everyone knows the South is the epicenter of unhealthy eating. I’m used to foods with too much sugar, salt, and any other artificial ingredients that cause diabetes and heart disease. We like to call it “comfort food.”

I learned that my relationship with food is attached to a fear I had of going hungry when I was a child after my parents split up. I convinced myself that there was no way my mom could feed all of us on her own because my siblings and I could really eat. Whether my father was joking or not, I remember him saying to me on several occasions, “You’re going to eat me out of house and home.” I took that as a personal challenge.   

  As I’ve embarked on my journey of healing, I’ve come to find out that I approach love in the same way as I do food. I look at finding someone to love or be loved by as a means of survival. I do that because I don’t want to be alone. I’m searching for someone who won’t leave me once I open myself up to her. When I say out loud why I want love, I feel it comes off as disingenuous, as if I have ulterior motives by wanting to be in love with someone. I genuinely want to be in a relationship that doesn’t feel like there’s any other motivation behind it other than love.

 I’m working hard to believe that eating fresh, clean, organic food will fill me up just the same as the unhealthy food I’m struggling to let go of. I’m working equally as hard to believe that I can meet someone and experience the joy of loving her without any underlying motive. But just as I’m struggling to let go of the unhealthy foods I cling to, I’m having the same difficulty allowing myself to love someone without associating it with survival. I want to get to a point where loving someone and eating clean is my lifestyle.  I’ve never had the joy of eating for fun and I’ve definitely never loved for fun.

 I don’t know how to look for something I’ve never had. I wish there was an organic love farmers market I could go to so that I could see what organic love looks like. I’m not sure how someone would pull it off, but I like the idea of being able to walk around sampling people’s organic love, the same way I sample foods at farmers markets to avoid having to buy something to eat. I would do it so I could get an idea of what type of love I’m looking for. Maybe I should start an organic love farmers market of my own. The only requirement I would ask of anyone who participates is to be able to demonstrate and prove they loved someone with no agenda other than love.

 I care about my health just as I care about my heart, so I’m going to learn to not fear new healthy foods, and hopefully I can live long enough to one day love someone without feeling like I’m doing it to survive. I’m looking forward to running into somebody at the organic love farmers market.

-EAT

I write as a form of healing for myself and others. If you enjoyed what you read, “tip the writer” by donating to Venmo or zelle @maronziovance or Cashapp $Gift2MaronzioVance