Baked Potato and Nacho Bar Night

I miss our family gathered around the dinner table, I do. But everything has a season and it just isn’t time for that right now. Truth is chronic illness can be all wrapped up in “missing things” that we once enjoyed or realizing we won’t be able to participate in something “special” in the future that we once thought might be possible. It CAN be all of those things, but that doesn’t mean our life is ONLY those things. I am often reminded by my youngest daughter with an old soul, that even HARD DAYS can have joyful moments. And indeed if you caught me in the middle of my shit show of a morning (in tears, fears and utter disarray) I would have called you daft (in the G rated version of this shaggy dog story) that the day would end on a high ♫.

But anything can change on a dime, can it not? And even when our meaning making machine mind wants to tell you that it’s all gonna go to hell in a hurry, there’s the other 999 possibilities that may manifest if we watch and see with an less rigid story line.

What was this amazing blissful happy ending? A baked potato. Sometimes life is so well represented by if not a well rounded meal, certainly a round little tuber. Dinner had a little something of everything for me that puts a smile on my face and warms my heart. Though the latter may well be the core body temperature rising as standing on my feet is still a significant orthostatic struggle.

But that’s what made tonight so special. The POTShole of the last six months has meant so many adjustments to not only my personal routine but also to the flow of our family and it’s been hard on everyone each for their own personal reasons. Indeed two years into a pandemic there is no one whose life has not changed in some significant way. All of us have lost people we knew. Some of us may know people who are COVID Long Haulers. We all are impacted by the higher costs for food and basic necessities. The supply chain, the work force, the re-infections and the new monkey pox case rise as we head into flu season. Goodness if you aren’t feeling stressed, overwhelmed and exhausted by the magnitude of the issues facing the world today … then count your blessings and hug your loved ones because odds are one of them can use a little extra love, patience and grace today.

Maybe that’s why the “little things” mean so much or can easily throw us off the tiny head of the pin we are trying to balance upon and say we are “centered”. I saw someone mention that their dog was stubborn and had a bit of an attitude because she believed she “belonged in the house at all times.” And I gotta say, it broke my heart. But I get that not everyone has a family bed that includes their dogs. Yet still, I think there’s a lot to say about a person by how they treat their mother or their dog. js

Or you know, how they prepare a family meal. You thought I forgot about the baked potato microcosm didn’t you? But truth is some families are just harsh. Stuck in control battles that they tell themselves is for the good of the children to not be “spoiled”. We see them on REELS .. proud to say my kids will eat what I cook or they won’t eat dinner. It’s harsh. Everything is a teachable moment I suppose. But how do we teach our kids compassion when we are caught up in our own control dramas?

Even though we have missed sitting down as a family for some time now, we still do cooperative meal planning and cook dinners and often breakfast for our large crowd. Always having something for everyone at each meal. Tonight was special for me, because I was able to contribute to meal prep in a more hands on way than I have in a long while. I simplified my traditional salsa recipe, made a very basic cheese sauce and used canned chili instead of the extra work it takes to cook bacon or a veggie protein topper. But most of all, we augmented our baked potato bar night to include nacho chips. Because truth is, not everyone likes baked potatoes and we don’t live in one of those homes where the dogs have to stay outside and we don’t care about people’s personal preferences.

Life is too hard at times, to not try and be kind when we can. And goodness if kindness looks like opening a bag of thin and crispy Tostitos chips with a fresh salsa that has basil from our garden then gosh that’s the very least we can do to say I love you, I think you are doing a great job and everything is gonna work out okay.