Tomorrow is an extended family member’s birthday, and we are having a family meal at Grandma’s. It’ll be a relaxed family afternoon/evening, where everyone gets together for dinner at the in-law’s condo on the lake, We all bring side dishes, and there’ll be steak slabs the size of your face on the grill, grandma’s famous homemade mac and cheese and other delights such as banana cream pie and it’s just a great way to have a family get together.

Until, like me, you remember that you are a vegetarian and you need to make sure you have some protein for yourself. (Insert eyeroll here). Often it’s just something frozen I end up throwing in the microwave because there is no room on the cooktop, in the oven, or on the grill; I would not want to put anything on to cook anyway as there is generally blood, and meat juices everywhere, and yuk, no thanks. No big deal, I just have to remember. 

– Good grief though. Of all the things you thought about as a kid when you imagined your life as an adult, the constant drudgery of feeding yourself was not one of those thoughts  – well it was never one of mine anyway.

But who am I kidding? 

Myself, obviously.

This is not a surprise, I have long been the only one who does not eat meat. When the middle son’s wife was still his wife, she was an adamant vegan with vodka on the side, and a big effort would be made to purchase protein options for the non-meat eaters. But then they divorced (the middle son and his wife) and she scorned the family with a blaze of resentment and f-bombs and was never seen at a family gathering again. And my ex-mother-in-law is not concerned with vegetarian options anymore. Besides, I’m a pretty chill vegetarian, I think people should be free to eat what they like. If somebody asks for my reasons, I’ll tell them, and what I tell them depends on how well we know each other. But, I get it. She’s in the last half of her 70s and is just more interested in having the family together. Not who’s eating what.

I have come to realize that gatherings involving eating are about community and connection anyway. Not the actual food.

I used to make and bring my own food. I used to put a lot of thought into what I would make. I would ask family members if they thought the dish I was planning on making would be something they’d like to try, and they would feign interest. Not being from the South, how was I supposed to know that, “Yes, that sounds great!” Does not mean “Yes, that sounds great!”??

Not that I was trying to “convert” anyone, but in the spirit of sharing food I would be sure to bring something that people would be interested in eating. Usually, it was something that had a tomato-based sauce and was cheesy, (cos, you know, everybody loves cheese) and I would make a dish big enough to feed at least six or so people. Considering there are usually at least ten people at any one of these meals, that would be plenty.

However, over time I realized that even though people pretended to be interested at the outset, I was the only one who would eat it. 

Then I would be the only one leaving with my own full casserole dish because nobody wanted leftovers either, and then I would eat it for the next four meals, freeze some, lament the money wasted on ingredients, soothe my wounded ego – again – and throw away the rest.

Nothing quite spells REJECT like leaving a gathering with your full dish that only you ate. I came to my senses one Thanksgiving when I carved a slab of flesh out of my thumb with a mandolin while delicately slicing potatoes, and attempting to stem the subsequent bleeding, I just stopped and questioned what I was doing. (Don’t worry, I didn’t add the piece of thumb to the dish, and I didn’t bleed in it either – which was a miracle cos there was a lot of blood.) 

So I only made half of the dish I intended on making, which I still brought home several hours later barely touched. It was then, that I had the epiphany that the universe was telling me to reevaluate my efforts, and if it wasn’t important to them, why should it be so important to me? A valid observation I concurred, which only took a couple of nudges from the universe and the loss of some flesh and a whole lot of blood, (did I mention the blood?)

However, it does raise the question of reciprocation and how wounding it is to have people continually reject what you offer them, physically, emotionally, intellectually, or spiritually, even after they tell you they are interested. Which, over time, ends up feeling like a rejection of you personally. But it is probably more about them than it is about me, right? But, that is not the road I’m headed down with this…

I have spent a lot of time going back and forth in my head, trying to decide if I should be offended or not. 

First of all, I think if you have to ask yourself if you’re offended, it’s most likely your ego is looking to have a moment. Cos, you know, when I looked at it from all sides and felt it out, I was not offended. 

While still married, I used to be put out by it,- a bit miffed, as the sting of rejection from being the weird kid who didn’t fit in at school would surface, memories like stinging bubbles of inadequacies rising to the surface, of not belonging anywhere, of my different shoes and different food and not having a dad (it was the 1980s in NZ, and we were vegetarian then too, and this was before a divorce or not eating meat was “normal”), I can acknowledge these feelings as they come up, pop those bubbles and let them pass through me fairly quickly. And I am happy to report that I have noticed there are not many of those left these days. In fact, I think they are all gone. 

With the divorce from the youngest son finalized almost two years ago, (we still co-habitat and co-parent three days a week. Which in itself is also an exercise in acceptance). I am truly grateful I am part of this family, after knowing them all for over twenty years, I am aware it could have gone the other way.

They are all good people, and I am happy to still be considered part of the group. I see as time passes and the views I hold of myself and others change,  I am grateful that I am still invited to these things, that they are such an accepting family, that I am still considered part of the family, and their capacity for unconditional love and acceptance is heartwarming. And besides, when there’s no issue with family, why make one? 

But, even through the years when things were good between us, and my husband loved me and we were building a life together, I was still the one with the accent and with my “liberal views” and empathic-see-all-sides opinions, I was so obviously “not from round here.”  It’s one thing to realize you’re the outsider when somebody loves you, another when you wonder if they just tolerate you now because they have to.

– Lucky I’m cute, right? 

I have come to understand, however, like everything, this is where I have a choice in how I choose to react and what I choose to look at. How deeply I choose to take this. How much I choose to let it bother me. How I choose to frame it.

I understand we are in the South where eating meat is considered a human right. I’m not trying to be difficult or special, I just do not eat meat. But really people don’t give a crap, and I “let” my son eat meat, he’s a teenager and knows why I choose to not eat it, but he also knows that I trust him to make the decision he feels is best for him, you know, take responsibility for his own palette, he doesn’t eat unconsciously and is in tune with how the things he eats make him feel, so we are good to go.

In the meantime, I just chuckle and guffaw my way through another round of tiresome jokes about how the men folk are saving the juiciest and bloodiest steak for me. Like all truths in life,  it turns out hardly anything projected on you is about you anyway.  

 Or, on the other hand, I could choose to be wounded that they don’t care and it’s a sure sign that they hate me and they silently judge me and blah blah blah, although in reality, I’m so unattached to that thought process I can’t even be bothered finishing the sentence. I’m sure you get the point. I see that resentment and rejection can hang there in my judgey-silent mind, with a big “SOOO, you gonna just take that? You ain’t gonna call them out on their lack of respect??” and I could work myself into a self-righteous rage, spin out and throw a toy tossing, ass bearing tantrum of monumental unhinged proportions unleashing all sorts of deranged leaps and unrelated perceived slights, throwing barbs and resentment, and making them think I was in fact bat-shit crazy. —- OR, NOT. 

And I choose not to. Because it just isn’t worth it and seriously, what would that achieve? 

Acknowledging I have a choice in the matter is huge and empowering, and takes all the hurt out of it.

No big deal. Because there isn’t one to be had. 

What’s done is done, and I would rather my son get to experience family get-togethers such as this for what it is. Family, getting together. Enjoying the time we do have, I have known these women for over twenty years and there is a comfort in just sitting around picking at cheese boards and talking about random stuff and things, having a few laughs and just being. Because schedules change, children grow, people die, and kids move away to college, and before you know it, these events are just distant memories. Hopefully, fond, distant memories just as mine of family get-togethers at my grandmother’s house are.

So, I usually end up eating before we go over and bring a token contribution to the charcuterie board or similar, and snack and chat and hang out because that is the main thing. That we all get to be together as a family and spend some time together, cousins hanging out, men at the grill, and the women catching up and doing kitchen stuff. As you do. And that view works for me. 

It makes me realize that by getting caught up in the details and letting my ego run the show, I could just make it really awkward for myself, my son, and everyone else. Nobody wants to spend the precious little time we have together as a family dealing with my issues, especially when, as an adult, I should have a handle on them myself. 

And it’s pretty awesome to realize that I do.