Opening up...

What started it all? I don't know but here I am and there are so many thoughts running through my heads at all times and I''m just trying to sort some of them out. So let's start with where I currently am - sitting at my dining room table which is covered now in painting supplies, paint, and a mix of baking and cooking items. Under the table there is a puppy gently licking my toes - upstairs my husband is sleeping. He will be up in the next hour or two to get ready to work and here I sit completely awake and unable to sleep. It is 4:07 am and I'm completely awake. I am here in depression and anxiety-ville looking onto the PTSD ocean. 

I am seeing a counsellor and doctor, I'm going through the process of finding a long term support system and proper medication to help me and the words that keep cycling through my head are trauma - my counsellor likes to refer to my past generally as the trauma I have been through and there has been a bit of it and I'm not in a situation or place to currently delve into my past trauma right now. As counsellor says I'm working on my baby steps of basic survival, he says that there are four parts to human life: sleep, eating, social interaction and exercise. We are currently working on the first two - sleep and eating. Sleep has been an interesting experience - I have switched from sleeping a total of 18 hours in a week to now being able to get a total of between 6 to 12 hours in a day but definitely not at normal times and not continuous. I'm not so much worried about this right now (or let's not kid anyone I'm trying not to worry about it because the more I stress about it the worse time I have trying to sleep.) This bring me back to food.

I have an interesting and dynamic relationship with food and right now the thing that keeps circling in my head centres from my for journey and trying to figure out who I am. in watching a lot of my favourite cooking shows the chefs and cooks talk about cooking and the inspiration they had as a child, the food that they had cooked for them while they were growing up. I have circled over this question of my cooking roots for many months trying to figure out my future cooking path and processing and understanding the passing of my last grandparent, Memere who I desperately wish I had more time with. 

I have been trying to figure it out but honestly I draw a blank on a lot of my youth, I think a large part in thanks to the trauma. This has lead to to a difficult situation for me. Food has been such a relaxing, calming and integral part of my life for oh gosh at least the past decade (or two... I feel old now). There is so much I want to explore and experience when it comes to food but I feel such a need go back and understand my roots with food. Food has now become an overwhelming experience - so many things I want to try, experience, cook and bake and I get overwhelmed. When I try to calm myself and go back to my roots I get lost and overwhelmed. I sometimes feel like a failure because making a simple grilled cheese sandwich is the most I can muster while other nights I make beignets, because it is something that I have wanted to try since seeing the movie Chef (and more so since watching the Chef Show on Netflix). 

So where does this leave me? right now covered in paint (never really been artistic but I'm inspired by my daughter) contemplating when I will get to make the Lemon Meringue pie I have wanted since I bought Myer lemons more than a few days ago and thinking that I really should be going to sleep.