Four Cans of Tuna

Opening four cans of tuna— mundane. Home alone, feeding myself a humble meal and not feeling sad about it at all. Rather, feeling content and easy.

Opening four cans of tuna, however mundane and humble, being by myself in the house all day was not lonely. It felt like a quiet strength and confidence. I know how to feed myself. I know how to cook lots of dishes with lots of ingredients and lots of steps. Those arenʻt my favorite. And I didnʻt have all the ingredients I would normally put in a tuna salad sandwich, and I paused not a bit for it.

My hands opened these four cans of tuna, my fingers manipulated the can opener and I tried not to splash too much tuna water onto the counter. I wondered if I would just squeeze the can to express the water or if I would use a sieve, and decided a sieve would be one more dish Iʻd have to wash.

These four cans of tuna were overkill for a meal for one. For me. Iʻd forgotten that my son was going out for dinner, and had no idea when my daughter would be home. But if Iʻm gonna make something, Iʻm gonna make enough for leftovers, is my mindset. Gotta make extra for a late-night snack, tomorrowʻs lunch.

Making these four cans of tuna felt like agency. It felt like I never anticipated being where I am today, divorced for the second time and single and alone on a Saturday evening, making tuna sandwiches for one and feeling at ease. Feeling so easy. This feeling is so easy. Nothing so easy in all the world than feeding myself, deciding for myself, making all these micro-decisions that belong to me and to only me and matter to only me.

These four cans of tuna. This singular, insignificant meal. Tuna sandwiches scream lunch, donʻt they? Itʻs a childʻs lunch, isnʻt it? “May you reject control and claim freedom,” read yeterdayʻs oracle card, and I did. “Fully appreciate the privilege of being at liberty to choose,” and I did. I have agency. The life Iʻm living in this exact moment is one I choose. I decided I could imagine a different life than the one I had. I am living for me, and this life is mine. The life Iʻm living is mine.

Iʻve chosen this life whereby I can make myself a fucking tuna sandwich with American cheese on whole wheat bread on a Saturday evening all alone. I can sit on the couch and watch episode after episode after episode of Criminal Minds AND play music AND play Word Cookies all at the same time. This life is mine and I have cultivated it. Make no mistake, I have earned it and fashioned it to be thus.

I ate more tuna sandwiches today while I made my lentil stew from scratch using my Instant Pot. While I ran my new air fryer for the first time. While I bake my chicken breasts in the oven and rinse my tomatoes and watch more Criminal Minds. I feel easy and content and I donʻt always feel that way about the life I have built for myself because I donʻt always feel like I deserve it. Iʻve a long history of making myself small, of not having dreams or desires or needs or boundaries, and so claiming this life doesnʻt always feel safe. But it does today. Right now, this moment, I choose.

 

The Trick

No matter how you might explain to yourself why your feelings are wrong, your feelings are never wrong.

Itʻs a weird statement. Itʻs a weird idea. My whole life, there was always someone to tell me to feel differently (even if it that person was me). Nah, itʻs not scary, itʻs not hard. Buck up, push through, youʻll feel better once itʻs done. Youʻve done this a million times before, Iʻve done it myself and I wasnʻt scared, look, even that kidʻs doing it, you can too.

So many ways to discount and ignore my feelings, and so much effort put into trying to change how I felt.

I was at Queenʻs West on Wednesday, sitting in the waiting room of the Neuro clinic. I was kind of a wreck, anxiety on full blast. And as recently as this morning, I was saying, “I donʻt know why I was scared! I knew how to get there, I could call my coworkers if I needed directions to the office (and I did!), Iʻm not scared of the procedure, I hear the doctor is very nice.” Itʻs a hard habit to break, that discounting my own feelings thing, and itʻs often disguised as something else. (It often comes to me disguised as comfort! How cruel.)

But as I sat in the waiting room, doing some box breathing, my phone in my pocket and not in my hand, I had a fucking breakthrough. Maybe MY FEAR ISNʻT A PERCEIVED CONSEQUENCE OF THE DISCOMFORT IN MY BODY, MAYBE MY BODY IS RESPONDING TO MY FEAR. Maybe this is what my body feels like when Iʻm scared! Maybe when Iʻm scared, my chest gets tight, my breathing gets shallow(er), and I become light-headed. Maybe I donʻt feel those things because Iʻm dying, maybe there isnʻt the natural consequence of AND SO I MUST BE DYING. Maybe the physical discomfort is the actual consequence: I feel emotions and my body expresses them LIKE THIS.

Maybe I donʻt need to be afraid.

I mean, I was still afraid. Hahaha! Donʻt get me wrong, the epiphany didnʻt dispel the discomfort like I wanted it to. It was no magic pill, no wave of the wand, I didnʻt suddenly feel enlightened and at peace. Pfft. Weʻre talking about a lifetime of bad habits Iʻm trying to change, yo. This new thought, however, changed how I experienced the discomfort.

And thatʻs the trick, right? To bear the thought that we will ALWAYS experience pain and discomfort and disappointment. We will all of us experience tough times. My therapist reminds me, though, that we can feel pain and discomfort, but we do not need to suffer. Isnʻt that wild? Havenʻt you, like me, always just assumed we were meant to suffer? Life is hard, life isnʻt fair! I mean, weʻve all heard it if youʻve ever watched television or movies or read anything published or talked to anyone or doom scrolled through social media. Doesnʻt it rock your mind, like it does mine, that we donʻt have to suffer even as we experience pain?

I just also happened to see on social media the reminder that the goal of my meditation practice is not to find peace, but rather to work with whatʻs going on in the body— to connect with whatʻs there, to discover whatʻs there. Not avoid it, and definitely NOT TO CHANGE IT.

Itʻs ridiculous, the things Iʻm learning for the first time in my nearly half decade of living. Iʻm learning how to literally breathe, how to pay attention to my body, how to decipher its seemingly cryptic language, and how to then meet my bodyʻs needs. Iʻm learning how to cry and feel and experience good things and how to leave responsibility lying on the ground when it isnʻt mine to pick up.

Iʻve always fantasized about myself being this serene hippie lady, riding her bike around town, loafing at the beach or grabbing my boogie board after practicing yoga and meditation, eating lots of fresh produce and much less meat, reading books on the porch while listening to the birds fuck around in my wildly tended yet super productive garden. And yet here I am, an anxious mess!

But honestly, I wouldnʻt change it. This is the work I gotta do to get that life that I want. That I deserve. And Iʻm strong and capable and intelligent and I am so fucking lucky to have the community I have. Iʻve done a shit-ton of work to get where I am, but by no means did I do this alone. Thank you for helping me get to this place. I love you all.