EATING WITH FAMILY

As I write this, I'm headed to a family dinner at my sister's place. Iadore my sister but I do not look forward to being with the family. Yes, I love them - but it is a love based more on instinct and theory rather than an actualized truth. I don’t know – perhaps there is a real love present and I don’t know how to recognize it. I still have trouble understanding what love feels like. I don’t even know when in the moment I love myself. How can I possibly understand when another loves me? Even when one of my family members does something kind for me, I am always trying to figure out why.

Apart from this confusion, family gatherings also cause me uneasiness because the main focal point is food. Food is an important element within my family. Certainly our being Italian has fortified a strong foundation for this to be the case, but my parents seem to have incorporated the quality very much in their lives. Food is the method by which my parents have learned to communicate. Many family activities center on food production and preparation. Before my parents immigrated to America, they farmed land in Italy. My father still maintains a sizable garden in one of Brooklyn’s Italian neighborhoods. They also continue with a lot of food traditions that have come down from one generation to the next. The family still continues to make its own wine, tomato sauce and its own marinated vegetables. All this is quite nice – I enjoy it. But, it also can be overwhelming because the food becomes the symbol for interaction and bonding. To clarify – food is not used to facilitate the communication rather it is used in place of it. As long as my parents provided me with food, they thought everything was going to be fine. Unfortunately, I required a lot more. Is it any wonder that I turn toward and away from food when I am in states of anxiety and confusion?

Being with my parents and a table full of food brings back a lot of anger. It reminds me of all the evenings when we would sit around the dinner table but nothing was ever being said. Food was supposedly doing the communicating for us. I also get very angry because some of my family members make chewing noises when they eat. This unnerves me so much that I have to leave the table. The chewing noise makes me understand the deep pleasure they are getting from the food and this aggravates me deeply. Perhaps I am jealous that they can enjoy it and I cant. In addition, it makes me feel that the enjoyment is a selfish one. They are satisfied with the food, while I am left alone with my problems and must find a way to resolve them myself. My parents provide food and nothing else.

Can anyone relate?

Stay well,
MBI