The first taste of you exploded on my tongue and from then on I knew my life would be different. But now that I must give you up, it is with much bitter sweetness. I thought we'd be together forever, that you would meet my children, but it's wrong to love something that makes you sick so good-bye. I will miss you. It's time to face the truth: one of the longest relationships I've had in my life, must now end.
Even as I threw out the menu to the Chinese food joint around the corner, I still had reservations. Not like you actually need a menu for a local Chinese restaurant because everyone always orders the same dish they always order. A few years ago mine was chicken and snap peas. Then came chicken string bean. Then came chicken fried rice. So no, I didn't need the menu in my house anymore. Just as you would cleanse your space of a toxic ex, I too needed to cleanse my house of any reminders that others in the world would be tonguing my love and I would not be.
See, I'm allergic to lots and lots, and lots of foods. One of them being soy. Another one of them being gluten. This definitely puts a damper on eating just about everything... but Chinese food? It's hard. You would need to order the chicken and vegetables steamed with no oil, spices, or starch, and quite frankly, I can make that for myself. That's not even Chinese food any longer.
Despite myself, I've tried off and on to pretend that I can still eat my chicken fried rice with success and not get sick. Let me tell you, denial sometimes feels like food poisoning. It's not rocket science: if you eat the damn thing you get sick. It's only a stupid entree, why was I having such a hard time giving it up?
Being Jewish, I was naturally raised to eat Chinese food with the best of them. Every week those little take-out boxes decorated our kitchen table like clockwork. Chinese food tasted like special family time, like eating in the living room while watching a movie. It tasted warm, as if my parents cared enough not to cook their own food for us(trust me, not cooking showed they cared.) It was something to look forward to. Something familiar. Something comforting. Chinese food became a part of me.
So subsequently giving up Chinese food felt like giving up a part of myself. It was my last way of feeling normal -pretending that my health was a-okay - and giving up being normal meant admitting that there was something wrong, knowing I must always be careful of getting sick every time I eat. The reality of it is heavy, and I just didn't want to face it. And as I dumped the rest of the fried rice which I couldn't stomach to eat, a part of me still wanted to play pretend. I wanted to be 9 years old and almost allergy free. I wanted to eat out of take-out pints with chopsticks and watch a VHS movie in my living room. I wanted to go back to a time when my body didn't cause me pain. Because yes, it's just Chinese food, but to me it's something I don't have control over no matter how much I try.
Oh well, guess I just have to perfect my sort of fried rice in sesame oil.
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