Sit With Me Awhile

One of the strange things no one tells you about starting over is how confusing cooking becomes.

For years I cooked for a whole family.

Dinner meant planning for multiple people, multiple appetites, and the general understanding that if you didn’t make enough food someone would inevitably still be hungry.

So I got used to cooking like that.

Big meals.

Large pans.

Enough food to feed what sometimes felt like a small village.

And then suddenly life changed.

Now most nights it’s just me and my son.

My daughter is eighteen and living that phase of life where she appears occasionally like a mysterious house guest who may or may not eat dinner at home.

So naturally I decided I would cook a normal dinner.

Just something simple.

Something reasonable.

Something appropriate for two people.

What I ended up with was a full pot of pasta, enough sauce for six people, and a tray of garlic bread that could probably supply an entire football team.

At first I just stared at the stove.

Then I laughed.

Because apparently my brain still believes there are six people sitting down at the table every night.

Now my refrigerator looks like a meal prep service I never signed up for.

Leftovers everywhere.

Containers stacked like some kind of accidental food pyramid.

The good news is that my son thinks this situation is fantastic.

Because in his mind this just means there is always more food.

The truth is, moments like this remind me that healing doesn’t only happen in big emotional breakthroughs.

Sometimes it happens standing in your kitchen, realizing you’ve cooked enough spaghetti to feed a crowd that no longer lives in your house.

And instead of feeling sad about it…

you laugh, pack up the leftovers, and remind yourself that learning a new life comes with a lot of small adjustments.

Including figuring out how to cook for fewer people than you used to.