I Really Am Capable of Taking Care of Myself

It is no secret that Neal does most of the “around the house” stuff here.  He has a much lower tolerance for clutter than I do so he’s almost always cleaning something.  He also usually cooks.  This has lead some to believe that I’m utterly incapable of taking care of myself without him.

Last holiday season, Neal went to his grandmother’s to make holiday cookies.  It’s a family tradition that they have where Neal, his mother, aunt and grandmother get together and make cookies.  The first year we were together, I went but stayed out of the kitchen.  This year I stayed home to work on some sewing I was doing for gifts.  Neal made sloppy joes to take with him so they would have lunch while making cookies.  He hates to stop to have someone go pick up fast food plus we both try to avoid eating fast food whenever possible.  When he arrived with the food, his grandmother asked if he’d left any at home for me.  When he said no, she asked “What’s Julian going to eat?”  It led to Neal and I having a good laugh over his grandmother thinking that I’m helpless to make myself something to eat when Neal’s gone.

We have a friend, Holly.  Recently her partner, Julie, went out of town.  While she was away, Holly posted on Facebook that Julie needed to come home because she was eating rainbow sherbert out of a mug with a fork.  I left my full time job in April to freelance so I’m working at home now.  Neal, on the other hand, just started a new job this week.  He works in restaurants so it is not unusual for him to work a double shift and be gone all day.  He’s been joking about me eating pudding with a knife because all the spoons were dirty while he’s gone.  When we went to the grocery, he bought a big package of ramen for me to eat during the day.

It is funny but the truth is that I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.  No, really.  I know how to cook quite well.  I was a vegetarian for many years and had to cook for myself.  I think that it is unfair if you are following a special diet to ask others to cook for you or accommodate you.  I’m also someone who always has at least a dozen irons in the fire at a time though.  Often, I’ll eat a bowl of cereal for dinner, not because I don’t know how to cook for myself, but because I’m in the middle of some project, know that I should eat but don’t want to take the time to do so.  As a result, I do often make poor food choices: eating cereal for dinner, grabbing a milkshake, eating nothing but apples for an entire day, etc.  It’s not because I can’t do it.  It’s because I don’t.  And it’s usually motivated purely by the fact that I have other things to do.

Anyway, I just wanted to clear that up.  I actually am not completely incapable of caring for myself.  I just don’t.  Today, I took the 10 minutes to make ramen.  Neal will be happy and for a brief moment while eating ramen for lunch, I felt like I was in my 20s again.