I never liked to cook. Eventually, I hated to cook. Finally, I refused to cook.
In the beginning I cooked because I needed to eat. But I didn’t like it very much. It was just a chore I tried to get through as fast as I could.
Then I had kids. And kids needed to eat. So for the better part of 20 years I cooked breakfasts, prepared school lunches, and made dinner. And since my now-ex was often gone, I was doing this while also trying to work, tend to the dogs, get the kids to their events and helping them with their homework. It was hell. I became pretty worn down, actually, and I remember in the late 2000s every night in the late afternoon sitting down with an espresso and a cocktail trying to motivate myself to cook yet another meal.
Then my now ex started medical school. And somehow I was expected to cook for her (and her classmates) too. And to be supportive I did it. And that, among other things, broke me.
For more than five years, I’ve all but refused to cook. I’ll be an assistant cook (“Rob, would you turn the oven on to 400”), I’ll prep cook (maybe), I’ll clean up, but otherwise I want to eat out at restaurants, eat take away food (note: I’m American but prefer the Brits use of Take Away over To Go 🙂 ), or warm up food, but I all but refuse to cook.
But yesterday Larissa had a super busy day that went until the early evening. I knew she was tired, and didn’t want to go to a restaurant, and didn’t want to think about cooking food (she normally likes to cook but has been so busy the past few weeks), so I decided to take it off her plate.
And I cooked.
I spent half an hour researching “healthy hearty simple” soup recipes. I found one that seemed very very healthy and tasty, and had a prep time listed as 10 minutes. So I went to the grocery store, purchased all the spices and vegetables and broths, came up, turned the music up high, and started cooking.
Did it take much longer than 10 minutes? Heck yes! These prep times assumes someone has a commercial kitchen with vast amounts of experience dicing and slicing things. But that’s okay. I got into a zen moment, did what needed to be done, and when Larissa got home a delicious soup was waiting for her.
Anyway, sometimes in life we have to break through our resistances. For me, that is cooking. I’m happy I cooked last night. I hope to do it again soon.
If there were a biography about you, what would the title be?
As a teen, I was teased a lot about my looks.
But my favorite tale is the time in eighth grade when my classmate burst into class. “Hey everyone, get this!” He called out to the class. “Tony’s grandma was looking at our yearbook last night and stopped and pointed at a picture and said, ‘Now that boy’s ugly.’ So Tony looks who to see it was and it was Rob!” Of course, I’m Rob in that story, and I can still hear the laughter from my classmates.
To make a long story short, that was a painful comment but I kept my head up. And I have many many faults, but I’m a reasonably confident person who didn’t let that teasing about my looks in my formative years bring me down and in fact had a lot of fun in my teen years. I’m actually kind of proud of that if I’m honest, that I hung in there and resisted the urge to withdraw from the world despite some heartless ribbing along the way.
I’ve had a lot of luck in my life. But I’ve also had my share of times where I was kicked in the groin. I had undiagnosed autoimmune disease as a kid but somehow emerged from that reasonably productive as an adult. My first marriage was to a selfish narcissist who eventually kicked me to the curb after extracting every morsel that she possibly could from me but again I emerged from that too (and today am re-married to a much better person). And perhaps luckiest of all, I was diagnosed with a potentially terminal (50/50) lung disease at age 42 but not only survived that but emerged from it mostly okay.
So I feel like I’ve lived a lucky life where I have so much to be grateful for, but also one where I’m frequently called “Ugly Boy” (mostly figuratively but one time literally) that I have had to stave off and then emerge from. And I have done just that.
I feel so fortunate for all that. So grateful for that. I am proud to say that I was called “Ugly Boy.” And that I emerged from that a-oh-kay 🙂
By the time they were 20, my parents were married (to each other 🙂 ). They started careers at 21, having kids (me) at 21 and they owned a house by 22. Later, they upgraded their house by age 27, started earning decent money at 30, and making great money at age 40.
Me?
I was married (for the first time) at 25. Started my career job at age 29. Had kids and a house at 30. And started earning decent money at age 35.
Always I was about five or ten years behind them. And that was okay.
By some miracle I caught up to them by age 40.
At age 40 I had some lucky breaks in my career, and I too suddenly started making pretty great money, just like my parents themselves had done at 40. Mom was proud of me, telling me that I was farther ahead of them by age 40, but the reality is we were about even.
Then life took me on a different path for me.
I got lung disease at 43. What started out as some fatigue and breathless when I exercised at age 40 was diagnosed as potentially-fatal lung disease when I was 43. That irrevocably changed the course of my life.
Whereas my parents spent their 40s having fun and accumulating money for retirement, I spent my 40s managing my health and holding on for dear life to my life and my career.
I spent countless hours in the doctor’s office. I lost a job, then found and lost another job. Meanwhile, after 5 years of trying to push and horse whip me back into my past successes despite my lung disease, my (now ex) wife lung gave up on me and moved on, first emotionally and then completely.
By 50 my parents were living their greatest life and could retire at any time.
By 50 I was job hopping, making half what I’d been at age 40, job hopping, managing my health as a second job, and hoping I could scrape enough together to retire by age 70.
In short, by age 50 my parents had been a LOT better off than I was.
And that’s okay.
I’m not my parents. My life is not my parents’ life. I was blessed because life could have just used my lung disease to kill me, but instead it spared me and I learned that I am a survivor, a battler, and surprisingly resilient.
And, overall, happy. Happier than I was at age 40, for sure.
I’m remarried. I won’t retire rich but by age 70 I’ll be okay.
In short, I was behind my parents, then caught up to my parents, then life pushed them ahead while knocking me back. And all in all I’m grateful. Because at the end of the day, all that matters to me is carving out some joy, managing my stress, and being alive.
It’s a long decidedly-uninteresting story as to why, but our cleaners don’t clean our basement, just our main floor. Which means cleaning the basement is on us, which means in busy times (nearly always) the basement doesn’t get cleaned as often as it should except for our office area.
This morning I noticed some dirt left by our contractors (or me) next to the basement exit door. It needs to be swept. And it sure as heck won’t get swept today. Yes, I keep a small broom upstairs to sweep by that door, but in my long list of priorities sweeping the floor next to the basement door is not high on that list.
Which makes me wonder: Why don’t good break-ins happen??
We’re forever worried about people breaking in to steal our laptops from our office. And it’s possible that can happen if we don’t take precautions like not leaving the laptops in view when we’re not around. But there is basically zero chance of anyone breaking in and stealing the dirt by the back door.Of breaking in and sweeping, or cleaning the bathroom, or upgrading/optimizing our laptops, or vacuuming the couch.
Which is more evidence that Earth is actually Hell. That somewhere out there in the omniverse at some point in the past we were condemned to amnesia and prison or to hell, and it’s here, on Earth. I love life. And I love our Earth. But that doesn’t mean it’s not hell.
For example:
Why is paranoid schizophrenia always bad? Why is it that the unfortunate souls* who suffer from it have misguided delusions that often hurt themselves or others? Why aren’t they walking in an imaginary world filled with happy people who tell them to do amazing things, rather than a scary world where voices tell them to do bad things?
Why are people always abducted for bad things? For money, or to hurt them? Why isn’t there ever a time where someone disappears and it’s because some good samaritan crazy person kidnapped** them to HELP them by curing their cancer or making them more youthful or something? Like suddenly our friend is abducted, then a few days later they’re returned with that cancerous growth removed?
Anyway. Earth is Hell. I’m convinced of it. And I need to look no further than the unswept dirt on my floor and how there is zero chance of some hooligan sweeping it away for us.
NOTES:
(*) Note: a recently past family acquaintance had this — it’s awful)?
(**) My heart goes out to the Guthrie family. And also the families of the 90,000 outstanding missing persons cases in the US.
When I was born, we’d never been to the moon. It’s possible it was all a hoax and we still haven’t been to the moon, but let’s assume that it’s real and we indeed have been to the moon. That was the year after I was born. Pretty amazing. In my lifetime, so much has changed, of course. There are too many inventions and changes to even begin listing since we all know what those are. But, for me, the greatest inventions have been autopay and digital music.
How much I hated paying bills before the 2000s. How much drudgery it was. There were checks to write, stamps to buy so I could send in those checks, reconciliation at the end of the month to make sure everything was accurate. Then for every day spending there was so much speculation how much cash I might need, then persistent worry I might lose or miscalculate the cash. Now it all — everything — just goes on my Visa which I can then peruse in a few minutes at the end of the month, challenge quickly online with Visa if something seems amiss, and then pay with the click of a button. Every expense imaginable goes on that credit card, and it has just made everything so much easier to deal with!
And then there’s music.
How much time did I waste in my life making mixed tapes. Or rewinding cassettes. Or cleaning records. How much money I spent for albums that overall I didn’t like very much but had two songs I liked. And how many times did I have to listen to a song over and over and over again on the radio until the point a song that I might have once liked became absolutely intolerable to listen to, not to mention all the ads in-between songs. But with digital on-demand music, every song I could possibly imagine is right there for free.
The world has changed so much. Many of these have been bad, some of these have been good, and there’s no doubt it has changed the world so very much in 50 short years.
But my favorite changes are on-demand music and auto pay. They’ve made my life so much easier and more enjoyable — every single day.
It was pride that prevented me from being too open and out there in public. For example, I dreaded sales calling because of pride. And didn’t have social media accounts because of pride. And never ever allowed dirty dishes to be in the kitchen because of pride.
Pride brought my spirit down when there was a flaw with my house or car. It made me sensitive (and lash out) at criticism (“f— you!”). It made me fret too much about silly statistics, like batting average or shooting percentage or quota attainment percentage. Who cares what I batted in recreational softball??
It was pride that embarrassed me when my (now ex) wife promoted her business and herself, like that time she stood on the street corner and handed out Halloween candy with her business card on it. I remember having to quietly work so hard to swallow that pride, to let her do what she needed to do without commenting that it was embarrassing seeing my last name being handed out on a street corner.
And it was pride that drove me to always look my best, to make sure my hair was good and my body was firm and I stayed youthful looking.
In short, pride made me worry too much about how people perceived me.
Then lung disease grabbed me in 2011. Put me in a hospital bed. Made me tired. Nearly killed me. Then, by some incredible undeserving miracle, it loosened its grasp on me and retreated, sparing me and letting me not only live but live without an oxygen tank (a 50/50 chance)!
Maybe best of all, when lung disease retreated, it also took with it my pride. Which I think is a good thing. In fact, it’s a great thing.
I could care less how people (except Larissa) perceive my career. Or whether they remember me as a good athlete or smart or not. Or see me as attractive or not. Who cares?? What does it change or matter??
In 2019, when my hurtful ex-wife chose trying to shame me about various things rather than just honestly saying she wanted to move on with her life (i.e. chose gaslighting and shaming rather than transparency), I guffawed at her. “I won’t be judged by you,” I said. “I beat lung disease. What the f— have you done?”
That was the moment I realized that I was truly confident. That lung disease spared me from the judgement of others. Because when we’ve faced the specter of death, not much in life can scare us after that.
Now I don’t care how people perceive my career. Or think I’m goofy. Or roll their eyes at my goofy rambling face-book posts.
It’s incredibly liberating.
Today I made myself vulnerable. Posted on Facebook and Instagram and my LinkedIn page that I was holding an open house tomorrow. 15 years ago there is no way I would have done that, but today I only felt happy that I could do my best to promote Larissa’s client. It felt good.
Meanwhile, I could care less if ultimately people on LinkedIn think I’ve had a successful career or not. I know the truth. What do I care how some random person perceives me based on my profile? This also feels good.
Pride is folly. Because at the end of the day we’re all human and vulnerable and fallible. No matter how perfect we are or rich we are or even strong we are, we’re just a bout with lung disease or cancer away from death. This is humbling. And it’s beautiful.
Here is to being pride free. And the incredibly luck that is beating terminal illness. I’m so grateful.
Describe your most ideal day from beginning to end.
My ideal day is sunny.
Maybe it has rained overnight, maybe not, but in the morning when I wake up the sun is out, the windows are open, and I can hear the birds singing. The temperature is pleasant, and of course the flowers are in bloom.
My perfect day involves leisurely coffee with Larissa. We’re dressed and sitting outside sipping coffee. It’s still on the early side and the day is still fresh. Maybe we’re on our patio, maybe we’re with family, maybe we’re on a rooftop deck somewhere. Maybe we’re near a blue ocean, maybe we’re in view of the mountains. None of that matters. As long as it’s sunny and mild, and the air is fresh, and we’re sipping our coffees together outside, it’s all good.
Meanwhile, we have some savings, our bills are paid, we no debt, our families are healthy and happy, and we’re not rushing off to some mandatory situation that day. Basically we don’t have any major worries at the moment. I’m not saying none of the situations don’t exist right now, but any ideal day must have these situations going on (or not going on) in the background.
After that? I don’t care. Because already it’s an ideal day.
Life is hard. But if we can carve out any moments of joy during the day, and we can start out the day with a peaceful coffee, and we have no significant worries (health, financial, safety, famine, drought) at the moment, then that is a terrific terrific day. Anything else is just gravy IMO.
How do significant life events or the passage of time influence your perspective on life?
How The Passage Of Time Has Influenced My Perspective
I was 43 the first time I started to relax.
For 20 years of my adulthood I’d fretted and toiled. Fretted and toiled, mostly about each of life’s milestones.
First, it was to graduate college. I was going to university in a small town that I didn’t like very much, because being in my early 20s I didn’t want to be in a small town — I wanted to be in the city! So I wanted out of that college, and the best way to do that was to graduate, so I fretted and toiled my way toward graduation.
Then I graduated and it was time to get my career going. Except we were in a mini-recession (early 90s) at the time and no one was hiring recent college graduates. So I worked a series of grunt jobs as a mover and a DJ and bank teller and tutor, and meanwhile went back to school to earn my teaching certification. I’d love to say those were good times, but they weren’t: it was a time of very low checking account balances and day-to-day drudgery and all through those years I fretted and I toiled.
Then I got out of school and got my first career job and then wanted so desperately to have a house. I felt like houses were out of my reach, and felt a lot of resentment at older generations for creating a world where I couldn’t afford a house. I spent a lot of time fretting and toiling although after a few years I was actually able to buy a house (!).
And so it went.
Every single step of the way, year after year of my 20s and then my 30s, I fretted and toiled. Fretted and toiled. I was pretty miserable most of the time, if I’m honest. Yes, I had my moments of joy, and on the surface everyone always commented how happy I seemed, but there was just this overwhelming sense of toiling and fretting surging through my veins like an invisible poison. I worked and worked, and when I wasn’t working I was taking care of the kids and the house and covering for an always-absent (now ex) wife, and all the time I worried and fretted about this and that, always worrying about the next milestone.
Then there was hope!
There was a moment — actually two — when I was 43 when I finally relaxed.
The first moment was on an early morning bike ride. We were at our vacation home, which I loved BUT which I was forever worried about paying for, and we were at the house one summer week when I was on a dawn mountain bike ride through the forest. There was a moment along the river when suddenly I realized the early morning sun was on my face, and the birds were singing all around me, and the river was murmuring next to me, and meanwhile the sweet smell of nature was in the air. And suddenly I just stopped. I stopped, got off my bike, and just soaked in that moment for a minute, then two minutes, then 15 minutes. There literally was not another human being around me, and I suddenly wondered if I were in heaven because it was just soooooo peaceful. Up until that time, I’d never experienced a moment like that before.
The next moment when I relaxed was THE moment when I relaxed. Age 43, and having dinner with my parents, and was making great money, and my work seemed to love me, and the kids were teens and seemed happy, and my (now ex) wife was around helping a little more often, and I was even still in my athletic prime (I’d batted .920 in and still regularly making diving catches during the recently-ended softball season), and suddenly I thought, “I’ve made it. I’m going to be okay.” I actually thought life might freeze at that very moment, where I’d be okay and age 43 forever.
But time didn’t stop. And (thankfully) life didn’t stop.
It kept on coming. Moment after moment, day after day, year after year.
That was way over 10 years ago.
In the decade since that moment at dinner with my parents, so many changes have happened in my life. I was let go for the very first time, and then for the second time. I battled a fluke lung disease (successfully, thank goodness). I got divorced and then after promising myself I’d never date again actually dated again and got remarried again (to a much more present person than my ex was). And meanwhile the years just keep on coming. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
To me, the most shocking things aren’t the life changes I’ve undergone since I was 43 (actually, each one of them has been a blessing). It’s that each year just keeps on passing. That life just keeps on passing. One year after the other. And it makes me realize the folly of toiling and fretting about milestones, about wanting to achieve certain things on a certain timeframe in life at the expense of being in the moment. Because life is in that moment. My amazing ex-grandmother-in-law used to say, “Life is what happens while you’re making your future plans.” How true that is.
I wish I could go back in time. And to tell myself to stop fretting. And to stop toiling. Because that stole so much happiness from me, and sucked 20 years of my life away.
But.
But!
I’m here now. And presumably I still have a few decades of good life left in me. And I’ve been influenced by the passage of time in that I’ve learned to just be in the moment, to just feel joy in the here and now, and to take a moment to appreciate each and every day.
Regret is folly. Better is to take what we’ve learned and to apply that to our present and future. Because our present and future is all we have in our life. And I’m just so grateful that time has taught me to appreciate today.
Wishing you a great day.
NOTES:
Every day WordPress offers a writing prompt. I’ve never been a writing prompt person but actually have been enjoying these prompts. This is my response to today’s prompt.
Larissa enjoys cooking, especially for the people she loves. She does not mind after a busy day of work migrating to the kitchen and investing an hour surrounded with pots and pans preparing a meal. For me, that is utter hell.
I remember when the kids were young. My ex-wife was never ever around. Ninety percent — or more — of the days she was gone early and still gone late, volunteering, on a trip somewhere, or (supposedly) working although she never seemed to bring much money home. Which meant the cooking was on me. I cooked the breakfast, and prepared the lunches for school, and then when it was evening preparing dinner was on me.
How much I hated to cook.
I disliked cooking before the kids were born, but that dislike became utter disdain after the years and years of drudgery in the kitchen when raising a family.
I remember after a long day of work, and it was 5pm, and I needed to help the kids with their homework, and I needed to prepare a meal, and I didn’t know where in the heck my (now) ex-wife was other than she wouldn’t be home, and just being sooooooo worn out. I would make myself a drink, and make myself an espresso, and I would drink the drink and drink the espresso and think, “I can do this. I can do this.” And then I’d do it. I’d make tacos or burritos or chicken or quesadillas or burgers, then the kids and I would sit and eat and laugh about various things (we were always telling stories and laughing, and that memory makes me smile just typing it here). Then I’d clean up, help them with their homework, read them a story or watch a movie with them, then we’d go off to bed to start it all over again the next day.
When I’m asked, “What’s my favorite thing to cook.” All those memories come roaring back. And I feel so much love for my kids. And resentment toward my ex-wife. And so much gratitude (and admiration) for my wife who cooks so often for us. And so much gratitude for my parents, who prepared meals for me for nearly 20 years.
But most of all, what I think is this: my favorite meal to cook is any meal I don’t have to cook at all. 🙂
DISCLAIMERS:
This was written 100% organically without the help of AI.
I hate to read what I’ve written, which means this was at best quickly scanned for blatant errors. I apologize for any and all typing errors.
Life, Work & Wonder 