(guest post by Annie)

I’m on the verge of giving notice at my job, at a place I’ve worked for nearly nine years, the school I came to straight out of high school. I have been here for 12 years, my entire adult life.

This afternoon I am writing the documentation that is the last thing I have to do before I go, and then, “out of nowhere,” I remember what a peanut butter and honey sandwich on Home Pride bread tastes like, and I miss my mommy and want chocolate milk, with the Nestle Quik crystals not fully stirred up so when you get to the bottom of the glass, there’s powder that isn’t even wet you get to scrape up with your spoon.

I cannot actually eat any of those foods. Not a one! I’m lactose-intolerant and gluten-intolerant. I am a sugar addict and a peanut butter addict and a caffeine addict in recovery. I don’t want the actual experience of chocolate milk and a peanut butter and honey sandwich (nor, incidentally, do I want the experience of being with my mother); I want what those things did for me when I was a little girl, or what I thought they were doing for me. I want the comfort. I want the familiarity. I want the sweetness.

When my mom abandoned our family, I couldn’t run to her anymore. And it was much too painful for me to even think of running to her. I felt so sad and so scared, and I wanted her to come and comfort me, but I felt that way because of her, so the feelings built on themselves. I was triggered, and when I sought relief, I became even more triggered, in a seemingly endless cycle.

I loved my food, though. I loved it and it comforted me. I stood in front of the cupboard after school, looking at the bounty and furtively gathering my favorite foods. I took out slices of white bread and spread them with peanut butter, chocolate syrup, and coconut shreds. I smushed them into my mouth as fast as I could so no one would catch me.
At the kitchen table, I ate bowl after bowl of cereal, adding more milk in between servings. I ate spoonfuls of sugar straight from the sugar bowl.

I did other things, too. I read books and I watched TV and I pretended outside as long as it was light out. I went to church. I petted cats. I listened to my records and cassettes over and over again.

The food, though, goes straight to the core for me. It is unmediated. It is direct and primal and central. You eat to live. You eat to survive. Nourishment. Sustenance. I needed to be nourished. I needed to be sustained, and I was.

There wasn’t a lot of love or tenderness in my life. I didn’t get a lot of the things a child– or any person, really– needs in order to survive. I couldn’t make anyone hug me or hold me. I couldn’t make anyone tuck me into bed or hold my hand. I couldn’t make anyone tell me it was going to be all right. But there was food in my house and I could get it myself. I could make a peanut butter and honey sandwich. I could mix chocolate into milk.

And now, I could easily do the same thing. I am powerless over peanut butter and honey and chocolate milk and white bread. If I didn’t give those things over to my Higher Power, it isn’t just that I could eat the sandwich and drink the milk, it is that I couldn’t not eat and drink them. What happens when I don’t comfort myself with food?

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