The video above is a clip from My Big Fat Greek Wedding. At 6 minutes and 20 seconds into this scene, Toula is defending her boyfriend. She tells her mother, basically, “But mom, I love him.” Mrs. Portokalos responds to that with, “Ai, Toula. Eat something.”
The movie is one of my favorites– which might have more to do with the empathy and understanding I have for the main character, and less to do with the movie itself. Still, despite the many scenes I love, I don’t relate to any so much as that moment.
Ai, Toula. Eat something.
In a nutshell, this is how I was raised.
I’ve written about my mixed up cultures before. I don’t know if this is an Indian thing, a Mexican thing, a Southern thing, a Texan thing, a Christian thing, a Hindu thing, a Chinese thing, a Scottish thing… I have no idea.
All I know is that I was raised to solve all problems with food.
Socially awkward situation? Put on some tea.
Did you have a long day? Have a cookie.
Did someone upset you? Go make a loaf of bread.
Are you feeling a little sick? Have some soup.
Is it too hot outside? Too cold? Is it the first day of school? The last? Did you work late? Is it your anniversary of your wedding? Is this the anniversary of your breakup? Did someone pass away? Was someone born?
Eat, eat, eat.
Eat something.
Along with all this eating for celebration and tragedy alike, came the inevitable weight gain– the kummerspeck, which is defined as the weight gained by emotional overeating. I was a plus size and didn’t think anything of it. I was happy with how I looked. I met my husband at size 16, and had no idea that I could be a size 2– let alone that I would be one in just a few years.
For the record, I still like the way I look, and so does my husband. I don’t feel that possessing a “thigh gap” makes me hideous any more than not having one did. I’m also, in-arguably, healthier now. My smile is the same size as always, but honestly– even if I didn’t like the way I looked anymore, it would have been worth it.
I lost this weight by giving up sugar and most carbohydrates– and I did that to help my husband fight a disease that was ravaging him from the inside out.
I have no regrets.
When I kicked all the sugar out of my house, in a post-ER fury, I didn’t really stop to consider what that meant until it was all gone. I was worried for Dave. I was worried for our budget because you can’t beat Top Ramen prices.
I should have been worried about kicking crutches out from under my arms, but I didn’t know I was using crutches until all my carby foods were gone.
I had a headache, but nothing to eat. I was frightened, but I had no comfort food. I was tired and hungry– and couldn’t think of a single thing to eat using the vegetables in my fridge. It was at that moment where I realized how dependent I was on food for my emotional well-being. It never seemed to be healthy food, either. I associated cake, cookies, fatty soups, alcohol, and caffeine with emotional balance.
I limped around the first day, trying to remember how to cure a headache and sadness without food. A week in, I realized I didn’t have a headache anymore because the withdrawal symptoms from the sugar had finally faded.
Two weeks in, I learned how to read or assemble puzzles to distract my mind from long days. I remedied socially awkward situations with music and television. I started to treat headaches with holistic headache medicine, or Tylenol.
Now, years later, I’m comfortable with how I only solve food-related problems with food. All other problems, I cure with appropriate solutions.
As I age, though, I’ve gone from empathizing with Toula, to empathizing with Mrs. Portokalos. I’m becoming my mother– and though there are few better people to become, I’d rather not pick up those sugar-encrusted crutches again.
I’m still trying to re-wire my brain, and it’s a slow work in progress.
This weekend, I was babysitting my niece. She was cranky because of an ear infection and complaining about dizziness and tiredness.
“Ai, C.,” I said without thinking, “Eat something.“
Before she could scramble her little legs off the couch to solve her ear infection with a popsicle, though, I caught myself.
I want her to enjoy food. I want her to love the way she looks, no matter how she looks, because she is beautiful. But I don’t want her to be emotionally dependent on food, or the act of eating. I want her to understand that our food is a tradition, one passed down from generations of ancestors– but stuffing our faces to fix our problems is not.
I brought her back to the couch for massages and lullabies. I laughed with her about how silly I am for thinking tiredness could be solved with food.
“That’s okay, Rara,” she said, with the ever-forgiving grace of a 4 year old, “You just got confused.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I didn’t just get confused. I was raised confused, and lived that way for just over 20 years. It’s a hard habit to break, but I’m tearing it down — one day, one ear infection, and one socially awkward situation at a time.
It’s a delicate process, but my goal is a simple one.
In the future, when my nieces come to me for relationship advice, I want to advise with patience, not with pie. I want to offer solutions, not soup. I want to encourage them to rely on intuition, not ice cream.
I want to help solve problems, not eat them.
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Did you love My Big Fat Greek Wedding, too? Do you solve problems with food?
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- Serendipity – Kummerspeck
- TheMatticusKingdom – His Mouth Keeping Score
- My Thought Exactly! – I’ve Been Lazy
Unrelated to food, or prompts, but when you’re visiting the other #ForThePromptless entries listed above — hang around The Matticus Kingdom to see the story that he is writing with the wonderful Revis. It takes place in the blogosphere, and I’m a character in Chapter 1! Maybe if you hang out, you’ll be a character later in the story, too?? http://thematticuskingdom.wordpress.com/2013/09/03/revis-and-matticus-save-the-kingdom-chapter-1/
