Really, what-the-fuck (SERIOUSLY!) are we going to do about dinner?
As a woman, especially as a woman whose mother is an excellent and joyful cook (she actually ENJOYS it), I expected at some point in my life I’d age into cooking. I thought it might be an acquired taste that I’d get with time. So I waited, and in the mean time I went out, or ordered in, or made a weird combination of things only I would like, and then ate the same combination over and over every night until one night the thought of it made me want to barf. Then I had kids, and thought surely now the magic will hit me in the kitchen and I’ll be able to get my shit together.
But it just never happened for me, and at 38, I’m pretty sure it never will. Unless I’m with my mom, or helping my husband (bless him, he cooks) I hate cooking. HATE it. HATE. When my husband travels I either order my kids something and try and stretch it through two dinners, or I make them a pathetic combination of things I don’t actually have to cook like veggie burger patties baked in the oven with air fried tater tots, strawberries, and scrambled eggs. Once I served that exact meal with pickles. I don’t know! I’m over here “in charge” yet feeding my kids like they’re two raccoons trapped in a dumpster behind a strip mall.
Towards the end of every day I feel joy at knowing I can call it all quits and be with my family, but then the question comes… what are we going to do about dinner.
And it makes me think of something else - the lies we’re told as little girls. Such as - one day you’ll love cooking. Or, when you’re older, it becomes harder to make friends, especially female friends. That was one lie I was very happy to discover wasn’t true. I think in a lot of ways we’re set up to distrust other women, especially as we age. But the truth is, as I’ve found it, we’re all out here on our own little rafts, wishing someone would throw us a rope, to want to tie their ship to ours.
I have excellent girlfriends back in New York and from my early childhood - fewer that I’ve hung on to from high school or college. But I have to say, the female friends I’ve made in the last two years or so are some of the most satisfying, least bullshitty, lowest-expectation relationships of my life and THANK GOD. Gals with whom I have a very take it or leave it thing going - we like each other or we don’t, it’s pretty low stakes either way. As a person I’ve grown into being a giant slobbery thing, telling everyone I love how much I love them and why, holding my friends’ hands, rubbing my face against their arms, being mushy and laying it all out on the table, and it has been great. And again, I realize this is all very LA DI DA when the world is burning down, but when the fire comes to your doorstep (I think it’s already there) these are the people and moments we’ll reach for.
So anyway, that’s one more thing that didn’t turn out quite as I expected in adulthood. You don’t have to stop making friends!
I think about a lot of things that I maybe expected to be a foregone conclusion when I was younger, I’d become domesticated, I’d be a hardass, I’d be an island, I’d be a trophy wife, I’d be a scientist on a boat somewhere studying pelagic snails. And then trying to backtrack down the roads I took, all the way to how I got started, and maybe try and get a bigger view of what could have been if I’d made different choices. I know I’m exactly where I’m meant to be, but if things as mundane as making dinner every night didn’t turn out as expected doesn’t it make you wonder about all the other things that could have been? The good and the bad? So many of the things I expected for myself didn’t materialize, but I wouldn’t trade where I am or what I have for anything in the world. Even if I do sometimes feel disappointed in myself, or whatever feeling like I’m not doing enough, I try and zoom back out and think of every tiny step I took to get here, and all the thoughtless choices I made to get to such a sunny spot, and it is honestly amazing.
I marvel at my kids often, what a miracle it is that they’re here, that their warm, smooth backs fit so perfectly against me in the morning, how improbable it is that they’d have these excellent little personalities and they’d make their own decisions and they’d make me laugh, and what a marvel it is that they’re whole humans with entire futures. And then I also try and think of myself like that sometimes. What a miracle it is that I am me, and that I have a potty mouth, and I have arms and nerves and blood and guts inside me, that I can make babies and also can make a whole career out of loving clothes and writing, that I’m a good swimmer and a lot of other things that just kind of happen. So sure, I’ll feed you pickles and yogurt with granola in the same meal, but I can do a lot of other stuff decently well, and I’ll hold your hand and brush your hair, sometimes I might yell, but I’ll love you and me and all of us so much, and so well.
And GOD what is happening to me! Talk about emo.
And so this brings me to something else - when I started this newsletter I thought I’d put it all behind a paywall because it’s mainly writing and I need to support myself with writing, but the pressure of writing things that feel fully formed about motherhood and parenthood is getting to me. So I think I’m going to put much fewer posts behind a paywall and just hope that if you’re finding some joy in any of this that you’ll subscribe? Let’s see how it goes. This is my party, etc. etc.
Your friend, as ever,
Laurel
I haaaaaaaaate cooking! Sometimes I think about the fact that we’re supposed to feed our kids every day for 20 years and it blows my mind. I do the same dinners as you - fish sticks or chicken nuggets in the over, some kind of fruit, leftover rice or Mac n cheese and whatever other random crap I can find quickly. Thankfully her school does breakfast and lunch or I’d be toast ☠️
As a mum of 3 littles, currently not engaged in paid work and thus a free subscriber, I am personally so thrilled you will be bringing more out from behind the paywall. The incredible community of mums I find myself surrounded by are worth their weight in gold and I believe the more connections (in person or online) made on this premise, the better :)