Grab Your Emotional Baggage – It’s Time for a Guilt Trip!

I am usually too busy just living, scraping by, to be consumed by guilt. So when the guilt trip finds me, it can be pretty traumatic. So it’s time for me to pack my emotional baggage because I am embarking on a motherhood guilt trip courtesy of being reminded of things I used to do.

I was minding my own business when one afternoon my eldest son asks me “Mom, you’re a great cook, how come you don’t cook at home anymore?” It was an innocent and honest question but I was suddenly filled with shame. OMG… have I become that mother?

Before the divorce and moving to Texas, I was a cooking commando. Cooking gourmet meals at home was a source of joy. I routinely experimented with new recipes. Making elaborate and fun meals was not just for me but also for my children. I loved to invite people over for meals, I would host parties in my home and every day was a feast. The ex would brag to his friends about how good a cook I was and about how well he ate at home.

I don’t think the cooking was related to how I was also a stay-at-home mom for the past eight years, but I always have loved to cook and I did it very often even when I was in the military. So probably not entirely related, but my son’s formative years were primarily with me staying at home. Therefore, I can see how it would be traumatic to go from home-cooked meals to mostly eating out and eating take-out with way fewer home-cooked meals.

I have been struggling with the underlying causes of my lack of cooking motivation. Here are my hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1: that I am in the throes of a post-divorce rebellion

My marriage was emotionally empty and lacked validation. Fourteen years of never being thanked, taken for granted by the man I was married to, and in turn the children who followed his example. So I could be rebelling against the habits ingrained by the institution I have liberated myself from.

Post-divorced me is traumatized and trying to make it through the trauma with little to no guidance or support. In trying to find myself, I have over-corrected and have given up on doing something that the old me is associating with thankless and pointless labor.

Hypothesis 2: I am deeply depressed

I have grown lazy and apathetic as a side effect of depression. It is no secret that I have lost confidence in myself and my abilities. I am burdened by emotions I don’t want to feel and depression just sucks in general. Basic tasks feel impossible to achieve. And underneath it all is overwhelming pointlessness and the questioning of every choice and if the effort is even worth it. The ultimate answer: no it is not.

Inaction sinks in and now I haven’t done anything. Why bother? Examination of the route my life has taken and examination of my feelings that I am further behind than where I should be at my age leaves me dissatisfied and disheartened.

A classic symptom of depression is a lack of enjoyment in activities that previously brought me joy. If you looked up depression in the dictionary, my face wouldn’t be there because I couldn’t be bothered to show up to take the photo. I probably classify as a high-functioning depressive case, but some days it doesn’t feel like it.

Hypothesis 3: All of the above

Unfortunately, that has me feeling no better about my performance as a mother. Especially since I pledged to deal with my emotional state post-divorce, better than my mother did with hers, in order to provide my son with a mentally balanced and stable role model. I worry that my depression is affecting my son as well.

The bottom line is that something has to give because not cooking is just another layer of the things that are keeping me from grasping happiness with both hands. If my love of cooking is the litmus for my mental health, until I find the joy of cooking again, I will assume that I am not moving on successfully.