24 years ago, probably on a lark, God decided I could be entrusted with the raising of another soul. If you'd seen my yuppie, over-scheduled life, you would have asked, what were you thinking, Supreme Being?
Thankfully, it worked out. My son not only turned into a wonderful, caring, intelligent adult, but made me a far better person than I might have otherwise have been.
It turned out I was better at the care and feeding of small human beings than I (and maybe anyone else) had thought possible. Happy birthday, son!
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One of the odd things about my job is the conversations I am privy to as I visit each table with their flight of wines. Sometimes I hear funny things that make me laugh. Other times I hear something which resonates with me. The other day there were three or four gentlemen tasting wine together and as I stepped up to pour for them, one said to the other, "Ever since the kids have gone off to college, she says she's not motivated to cook anymore. She heats up frozen meals in the evenings."
Of course he said this with a sad, resigned air, which I kind of get, but on the other hand, if it's bothering you, dude, step up and grab the apron. Man can cook, after all.
But I do have a lot of sympathy for the wife in question. It's taken me a long time to get out of the habit for buying enough food to feed an army on its feet, which is what our family was for the longest time. It's almost a grieving process you go through, once there is no longer a full family to cook for. You spend years learning recipes that will keep kids full and will re-heat well, since kids are so busy you're often feeding in shifts. It's all about big casseroles and other one-dish meal wonders.
When they leave home, all that changes. Immediately.
So one of my greatest challenges has been re-learning how to cook -- for two adults, not five people of various sizes ranging in age from 10 - 40. Harder still was learning to BUY for two and not five.
Ifyou're single, I would imagine it's even harder to get up the motivation to cook for yourself than it is for couples, when you could just graze out of the fridge instead. Not that there's anything wrong with grazing. But it still should probably not replace meals 100 percent of the time.
But I also saw a study recently that many older adults who live alone are eating more and more processed food (both frozen and take-out), because they don't want to cook for one, and that is creating health challenges in the form of high blood pressure from high sodium levels, and diabetes from high sugar levels.
So what's to be done about the home cooking conundrum for singles and couples?
I think we need a revolution in small-portion cooking. I think there ought to be cooking TV shows that feature small dishes and limited portions, cookbooks and online resources that offer the same. With the Boomer and even Gen X'ers aging out, this becomes even more important.
You can add a homesteading angle to it as well. How do you grow for just one or two people? How much do you preserve, freeze and put by? Having just gone through this with a whole bunch of canned tomatoes I put up in 2013 and need to use NOW, I really could have used some tips on knowing how much to grow when my kids left home. In 2013 (the year after they left) I grew waaaaay too much, bought waaaaay too many groceries, and didn't eat enough of any of it.
And I have the expired food in the bottom of my trash can to prove it. That shouldn't be the learning process.
It's all well and good to be able to feed the small army that a houseful of kids is, but if you're an army of two or even one, it's no less important. It's something I plan on spending some time exploring in life and here as well, in the hopes of finding a new way of cooking, growing and eating.
Because there's more to growing old than throwing a "Lean Cuisine" meal in the oven (or even an Amy's Organic Kitchen meal) and calling it healthy eating.
It's not. But I'm convinced that there is a better way out there, and that it can not only be delicious, but also be easy and save money in the long rung. Not to mention stop you from filling your trash can or composter with expired foods.
A few days ago my son (who is a public relations major at a university in Los Angeles) called me to let me know he'd gotten an interview for a prestigious PR firm. I was ecstatic for him; he's good at what he does, and I know this internship is an important step towards success in his field.
He called again the morning of the interview, stuck in traffic on the 405 Freeway, slightly panicked about whether or not he'd make the interview on time. For the record, he'd given himself almost two hours in rush hour traffic to make the 38-mile drive, because that's just how LA is.
Anyway, he made it on time, he got the internship, and will now begin making that two-hour commute three days a week. He will be wearing a suit and be working in a skyscraper with a glass elevator, a mahogany-paneled conference room, and his own office. I'm sure there will be evenings out on the town and plenty of lunching at Beverly Hills restaurants.
And in the midst of all his success, I found myself inexplicably depressed, despite being HUGELY proud of him. And it wasn't Empty Nest Syndrome, either. I found myself depressed because he's running headlong into the life I ran headlong out of 20 years ago.
You see, I was also public relations executive (apples don't fall far from their trees, do they?). I had an expense account, two secretaries, a company car, and worked no less than 50 hours a week, oftentimes more. I wore tailored suits and made good money, but because I lived in such an expensive city, I had little left over at the end of the month.
Some of the problem was me -- I loved eating out, having my clothes dry cleaned, and taking vacations. Some of it was the price of living in LA, where my crappy, one-bedroom apartment in a so-so part of town cost about $1500 a month and my car insurance was more than my actual car payment was.
I loved those years of my life, but truly, a part of me always longed for the country. My vacations were always to mountain villages, remote and undeveloped islands in Greece, or just up the coast to Big Sur. I rarely visited other cities, because I lived in a huge one already. The truth is that, with all my success, I longed to get my hands into the dirt and to simplify my life.
Eventually, I did just that, and I raised my son in that same, simple life. He had lots of animals, wide open spaces and a Mayberry-type town to grow up in, out in the endless, flat fields of the California's Central Valley. But now he's in the city, living in the exact place I moved away from because I felt it wasn't a good place to raise children.
I guess that's a good example of irony, isn't it.
And so, along with my pride in his accomplishments, I also have some fear. I fear for him, living in a city that often chews nice, kind people up and spits them out for breakfast. I'd hate to see him lashed to the mast of a two-hour commute on a permanent basis. And as much as I want him to meet new friends and even have a great relationship, I want him to be able to disconnect from LA Life when he is ready and fly away.
But of course, my son is college-age, and all these decisions are his to make. I just hope that his upbringing of having a love for the land will stand him in good stead and ultimately bring him to the place he's meant to be. Some of it's trusting him, some of it is trusting God.
But since I am neither of those individuals, my job is just to wait and see. And that's not an easy job, I'm telling you.
