Tag: cooking

“Throughout September, join us in celebrating Can Do Month by sharing a photo of how YOU thrive with MS!”

This line greeted me in my daily junk email aggregator, and rather than gagging (my usual response to being encouraged to focus on all the things I can do with MS), I felt sad. For these days I am not thriving. These days I have just enough energy for a jaunt to physical therapy, a few hours’ work, and two episodes of Buffy. These days it is not uncommon for Neal to make all three of our meals for us as I’m relegated to a bar stool to read or play with my phone. If he’s preparing dinner, one eye is on my task while the other looks up compulsively to see what’s happening on the other side of the counter.

While these nights spare me the expenditure of physical energy, my mental energy triples as I worry about a) whether he’s doing it right and b) when to speak up. Cutting onions or other vegetables unsafely (i.e., not with their flat side down)? Let it go. Trying to boil water on medium heat (which, to be fair, is pretty damn hot on our range but will slow the process)? I’ll likely just make an excuse to pass by the stove and bump it up a little. Subbing whole wheat flour in cookies when we’ve run out of AP? Oh hells no. Initially I calmly (mostly calmly) read recipes aloud, micromanaging each step, but, as I try to let go more, I try to let him do his own thing, checking in only occasionally.

While I was on a call last week, Neal made a great semi-improvised quiche. Mushrooms, asparagus, spinach, THREE kinds of cheese. Really delicious. And I was happy as I ate it . . . and yet so very sad.

From the moment our cohabitation began, I was the primary household cook, ensuring we ate really good dinners nightly with a least one proper breakfast on the weekend. Sure, Neal would jump in from time to time to make burgers or do some of the chopping, but the kitchen was my domain. I received marriage proposals while passing plates of homemade mozzarella sticks and olives in blankets at our ridiculously crowded house parties. I had a goddamn cooking show! Even as the MS slowed me down, I almost always made dinner. Sure I did it from a rolling stool and begrudgingly accepted help with heavy pans and fiddly preparations, but I still did most of the work.

Lately due to some combination of MS, mega antibiotics, and Covid malaise I have trouble mustering up the energy to make a cup of tea. Our I cook/you clean arrangement has become you cook and clean while I sit still cycling through gratitude, frustration, anger, and dismay. When dinner isn’t quite up to my standards, I regret that I couldn’t do it myself. When it’s great, I feel threatened. I’m ashamed to admit it, but it’s true.

I recently told Neal I’m pretty sure that one third of the sentences I say to him start with the words “Would you please.” Each year, each month adds to the snowball of needs that is me, and, if I lose my status as kitchen goddess, what am I contributing to our household barring the occasional (okay, frequent) pun and a pretty face? I know marriage is about ups and downs, sickness and health, etc. But I’m the dummy who put promises to feed the family in her vows. TWICE.

MS (/Covid/antibiotics/2020) is shaking another part of my identity, so I’m practicing my own kitchen serenity prayer–pitching in when I can, having the grace to step away when I can’t, and listening to Neal when I lack the wisdom to know the difference. I made us an excellent breakfast of toast, avocado, scrambled eggs, and smoked salmon this morning. I’ll let him handle dinner tonight.