Epiphany 

29/04/24

I’m still struggling with stress nausea, although the actually vomiting is much reduced,

Unsurprisingly, I have very little appetite and am often failing to motivate myself to cook. 

Cooking for one feels so shit.  

I believe cooking and eating should be a sociable thing.  I adore the cliché Italian style dinner – crowded, loud and fierce, with good food, good wine and good humour.  

So there I was, earlier today, standing in the kitchen, considering whether scrambling an egg was worth the effort, when I had an epiphany. 

I realised that if EH had been here, no matter how tired I felt, or how little appetite I personally had, I’d still have cooked something lovely and nutritionally balanced.  

There I was, struggling to summon the motivation for basic self-care, and yet I’d have done it for him without a second thought. 

I’ve spent years and years looking after his health and comfort – scratch making smoothies, kefir, ginger shots, granola, carefully planned post-cycling ‘recovery’ meals, researching and buying appropriate vitamin supplements for him…on and on… and yet I never did that stuff for me.  

Of course, I’d consume ‘overspill’, but the focus was entirely on EH and his health.

He wasn’t even appreciative.

The energy I expended on him now needs to be directed towards myself. If I could put all that effort into someone else, surely to goodness I should be worth it?    

I need to stop seeing cooking for one as shit, and start seeing it for what it really is – an act of self-care and self-love. 

The well-stocked fridge and the oven that only seemed to function by my hand during my marriage, but somehow benefitted him the most – they’re to be for my sole benefit now. 

When I write it down like this, I realise that what has taken me 20+ years to see would have been obvious to a blind mouse riding past on a jet ski.

Makes me feel a bit stupid, but, as with many things, better late than never. 

I will do it for me. I’m more than worth it.  

And I know I’ll appreciate it. 

Eventually.

JP