What I Ate The Last Two Mornings: A Personal Baguette & “Chocolate” Oatmeal — Sept. 20th & 21st, 2022

I ate a whole baguette this morning. I stopped at half and was like, I feel good. But I didn’t want to feel good; I wanted to cross over from a place of empty to a place of full. I wanted to reach a point in which desire would cease to exist inside of me.

I knew when I grabbed the second half that I could save it for lunch. There’s no one even here to take the second half away from me; it’s mine when I want it. But I find so often that I love teetering over the tipping point. I don’t like doing things with balance. Imbalance feels freer to me; or at least like an experience. This morning, I ripped the bread with my hands into small bites until it exhausted me; until all the jam and butter were wiped clean off my plate; until my stomach asked me to stop.

Can you imagine being lauded for maintaining balance? Wow; she lived her life with such balance!— no one has ever said after someone passed. Have you ever noticed how much fun stupid/imbalanced people have? I don’t have a bunch of money for booking wild adventures, and I don’t do drugs — so I have to overeat, undersleep and say inappropriate things. Otherwise, I’d be bored to death.

And speaking of boring…when I make oatmeal, it is like the least boring version of oatmeal ever. I include so many components, numerous toppings, and use the heartiest oat flake in production. I change it up every day; no two bowls are the same. Recently, I have started making chocolate oats on mornings when I desperately want to eat a jar of Nutella with a spoon. The chocolate oats are so much more sustaining. I usually start with shredded zucchini, add cocoa powder (sometimes peanut butter powder too), top with chia seeds and dark chocolate chunks and then drizzle syrup over it all. It’s beautiful, fairly healthy, filling, and a real trip for the senses. Your mouth is all, ‘What the hell is this? Chunky chocolate pudding?’ It’s good to confuse the palate in the morning. Starts things off right.

Anyway, yesterday, after years of offering to make Ollie oatmeal, he finally said yes. I made him chocolate oatmeal, at his request. He ran straight from his bedroom upon waking and sat down so cutely at the table that I could have stood there for an eternity, staring at his small body, sitting upright, waiting expectantly to be given something he had asked for from me.

Oh, the space between a request and gauging whether or not you can fulfill it.

I presented the oatmeal like a prize. Like he’d won something for wanting something I could manage for him. Like I’d won too.

And guess what?

He hated it. He took one bite — of the dark brown oatmeal, with an obvious sprinkling of chocolate chunks ON TOP — and threw his spoon down, producing actual angered tears in his small eyes, and YELLED: THIS ISN’T CHOCOLATE! THERE’S NO CHOCOLATE IN HERE! IT DOESN’T TASTE LIKE CHOCOLATE!

Three giant lies. From a person, aged seven. Seven years old; three giant, in-your-face lies.

I almost threw the tiny ceramic bowl I had adorably placed the chocolate porridge into across the room. My arms were shaking. I was holding two Hershey’s Kisses (from last Christmas) in my hand, about to pack them in his lunch — and then almost threw them too (I figured those would be the better choice; they’d still make a good sound but not involve so much cleanup and feel less like violence) — but instead of throwing anything, I just stomped like a little baby bitch around the room and then sneered at my son and spat a little as I said the meanest thing I could think of in the moment: You little ingrate.

I didn’t say ‘You little motherfucking ingrate’, but you could practically hear ‘motherfucking’ in my non-cussword sentence all the same. You could feel rage and fury pouring out of my teeth.

He was mortified. When Oliver feels wrongfully attacked, he will attack back. But when Oliver feels that he’s been seen as being bad, he will crumble. He crumbled.

**

I’ve been reading about repair in our relationships. The power of the repair. We’re going to fail; we’re going to talk poorly to our people — but we always have the chance to repair. That repair is where the love lives.

Ollie and I were on our way to his school, nearing repair when I realized I still wasn’t ready. I was mourning something — something more than having made oatmeal that was underappreciated. I whipped around to him walking behind me on the bike path and sneered, My mom didn’t make me oatmeal…! You have a mom that makes you oatmeal and you treat her like that…!

He stopped, mid-step. Crumbled, again. I put shame into his body. Instead of feeding him breakfast, I fed him shame.

**

A moment later, I braided it all together inside of me. You can hate the oatmeal, I told him, calmly. You can hate anything I make you. Anything I give you. You can hate the oatmeal, but you have to say that to me with love. The same way I made it for you.

I’m mourning, here, honey. I’m still mourning. This whole thing called motherhood is another word for mourning. I wanted one thing. I got another.

What didn’t I get that I wanted; what do I have instead that I need?