Hello! Giving y’all another throwback to September 2020 when I journaled about burning my dinner and gathering the courage to move on from things that are not working. Enjoy!
September 2, 2020
I’ve been trying to perfect my roasted brussels sprouts. They either come out too soggy or completely burned up. Today was no different. I burned them again and resigned myself to having blackened brussels sprouts for dinner.
But then I thought: why am I doing this? Why am I forcing myself to eat something that’s fully inedible? Childhood memories surface of the punishable crime of wasting food. However, sitting here suffering through burned brussel sprouts feels like something other than my scarcity trauma. There were more fresh brussel sprouts in the refrigerator, I could’ve tried to cook them again. But for some reason, I convinced myself that before I could move on to eat something else, I had to finish the mess I’d created.
Nah, this isn’t residual childhood guilt. This is grown ass adult self-punishment.
There’s this old adage that if you make your bed, you have to lay in it and I can see where this comes from and why it stands the test of time. We have to take responsibility for our actions and our choices, whether they’re good or bad. But I’m thinking of the act of laying in bed. You’re not doing anything! You’re just wasting time in the fucked up shit of the bed you made, getting bed sores and shit. You might even get too comfortable in your bed/mess to change it.
Why not get up and fix the bed? Start over? Why doesn’t the saying go, “You made your bed, now what are you going to do about it?” I understand if you need to lay in it for a little while until you get uncomfortable enough. But sometimes we need to give ourselves permission (and power) to leave, to get the fuck up and get the fuck on with our lives!
We need to give ourselves permission (and power) to leave, to get the fuck up and get the fuck on with our lives!
Why do we do things that we don’t want to do? Things that may actually hurt us? Why do I force myself to finish books I’m not enjoying? Why stay at a job that’s not paying me enough? Why am I dating someone who doesn’t give me the romance and affection I desire? Why stay stuck in suffering?
I know I can get into the habit of beating myself up when I make mistakes or when things don’t turn out the way I want them to. Negative self-talk is something I’m actively learning to fight against in therapy when I catch myself (Present-day Jolie here. Fastforward three years later, I’m still working on my inner dialogue haha!). I think that’s part of the reason why so many of us stay stuck in negative cycles. Not because we don’t believe we can move on, but because we don’t think we deserve to move on. Not yet. We need to punish ourselves for our choices and actions. To lay in the beds we’ve made. To eat the food we’ve burned.
Well, you don’t have to do that anymore Jolie.
Burning my dinner taught me a valuable lesson (though it taught me nothing about cooking). It taught me the art of moving on. There are a lot of things I’ve done (or bought or said) in my life that I regret. But I can’t keep punishing myself by forcing myself to relive my worst moments. I have to throw out the burned bits, open a new bag, and start over.
Making my bed and laying in it is not going to be the story of my life anymore, nor is eating burned, soggy food just because it’s there. From now on, I’ll adopt the adage of “when you know better, do better.” Or at minimum, do differently. Being loyal to myself and my growth requires this.
My baking adventures also taught me the importance of taking food out of the oven as soon as it’s done! And not turning the oven off and leaving the tray in there while I mindlessly scroll on Instagram. I’ll do better next time. There’s always a next time.
(FYI, I didn’t eat the burned brussels sprouts. I threw them away and made shrimp tacos instead. Harder to fuck that up, haha!)
This entry was written under the prompt QUIT, Day 25 of the Finding the Right Words 30-Day Journaling Challenge. Follow along using the graphic above and write about whatever comes to mind with the corresponding prompt. Share with me using the tag #FTRW or email me at joliedoggett [at] substack.com.
There’s no wrong way to journal. You just gotta find the right words. Happy Writing!