Hanging up the Apron?

Somewhere in my youngest son's 16th year something within me sort of snapped. I was just so done with cooking. I had been on my own since the age of 17. A mother since the age of 19. For 28 years I've run a home. I've been a single mother and a working mother, a stay at home, homeschooling, working from home mother and about a dozen different combinations of all of these. If I multiply 28 years by the days in a year and three meals a day I get a number over 30,000. Even if I am not making breakfast or lunch (which I usually did because we homeschooled) and even if you subtract for eating out, leftovers, and fend for yourself nights that is a big number. A very big number. Cooking for my family often was the most thankless of jobs. Moans and groans, icky faces, tears over not wanting to eat the dreaded stalk of broccoli (which has been known to kill people apparently). Energy and creativity for feeding my family ebbed and flowed over the years. Sometimes I was a rock star and sometimes I phoned it in. LITERALLY - I phoned in pizza! I'm a meal planner, always have been and the better I planned the easier my life went. But sometimes I was totally winging - and that is fine btw. We made it. But that year my spirit was just drained. I had reached a place where I had nothing else to give and if I'm being entirely transparent with you I did not want my spirit renewed. I was not interested in lighting that fire and regaining a desire to cook, shop and plan meals anymore. Stick a fork in me, I was done. So, I didn't cook.

No one died from starvation I am happy to report. My son was 16 and my husband though completely lost in the kitchen can cobble together sandwiches. It's not as if I were neglecting toddlers. I've always raised my kids to cook and contribute so the days my son cooked sort of became meal days. I would try to do something on the weekends or pull together a crock pot meal here or there through the week but I was AWOL from the kitchen. Kid you not. I struggled with this and with the feelings of guilt over it for many months approaching a year. I was relieved to learn that many friends in that same season were also experiencing a similar aversion to cooking. It's actually pretty normal. We laughed and complained about it over glasses of wine and cups of coffee often. At some point I realized and admitted to myself that my youngest child was still in my home. He wouldn't be forever, those days were numbered. The others had already moved out, married and started families. I knew he wasn't getting the same mother the other kids had at the same age. He never had the same mother the others had. I was in a different season with each child. I'm blessed that they have moved out and on. I think I might find it burdensome to feed a houseful of capable adults. That would look different I think. Something else happened that really awakened me though. I rediscovered my husband. He wasn't lost and he wasn't really neglected either. But I was already a mom when we married. We never had the newlywed experience without children. Now our son was busy, working, out with friends, involved and we had time for the first time to just be together.

I had always considered him in my meal planning, he likes to eat and he appreciated complete meals. But my meals often catered to my picky children and my own simple palette. He likes much more adventurous foods. He loves Korean, Thai, and Chinese food. He loves seafood and he loves to try new things. He had none of that really in our marriage to that point. I wanted to be more adventurous but I didn't know how to cook any of those things. Then a reality emerged that was sort of the nail in the coffin to the idea of abandoning my kitchen. I began to look harder at the budget. We were spending a lot of money individually and as a family eating out. My son would spend half his paycheck eating out. We picked up a lot of convenience foods and ate way too much pizza and carryout. My pantry and fridge was filled with processed foods, something I had prided myself in avoiding. We were focused on retirement, paying for weddings, beginning to travel and the money that was being siphoned away by Papa John, no offense John, was really hard to accept. I also couldn't help but notice the number on the scale for every one of us was not good. In a time when we needed to become more attentive to our health than ever before I was allowing us to slide into obesity. I could feel the frozen pizza and Velveeta swimming in my veins. I did not want to put my apron back on. I really didn't. I would love more than anything for someone else, anyone else step up and to cook and shop and to take this off my plate. But I'm still the Mom. I'm still the wife. My family needed a hero, my apron became a cape. (I'm really into heroes and capes.) I marched back to the kitchen. No, I stomped. I threw a fit. I really did. Reluctant hero at best! I resented that this was somehow my problem. I took it to prayer. I didn't like the answers I got there either.

I was tired of making the same things. I was uninspired. So I struck out and began to try to learn to cook differently. We decided rather than eat out a lot of fast food or quick meals we would instead focus on trying new restaurants and new foods. I talked with my man and told him I don't want to feel like the kitchen maid anymore. I would enjoy cooking more with him by my side. Making new dishes and foods together, a glass of wine some music on, maybe some flirting. Candles and flowers on the table. He was in 100%. He loved the idea of making this time be couple time. He helps clean as we go. He has also taken over at least half of the shopping and while it was bumpy at first he has figured out where things are in the store and what to get. He can even decipher my grocery lists from what I write down and what I actually mean. We have found a way to get excited about cooking and food. We have sort of become foodies! We love trying new restaurants and to keep it budget friendly we often only go for appetizers or we split a meal. Everyone is happier now that the kitchen in our home is once again fully operational. We have reclaimed our health and we are working toward significant health improvements. I imagine this will continue to change when our youngest leaves home, when my husband retires and we just get older. I want to embrace the change of the seasons and however they look find joy in them. I don't know if I'll ever hang up my apron again, but I hope not.