mac 'n' cheese

so i started this post 2 weeks ago, got super busy, and never finished, opps :)


mac 'n' cheese for many people is considered a comfort food; a yummy meal that somehow magically manifests itself into bites of heavenly cheesy goodness, well at least my gourmet homemade kind does! (p.s my homemade kind took just as long if not a tad shorter to make then the boxed kind!) there is something so ordinary about mac 'n' cheese; ordinary in its familiarity and simplicity. and yet in the midst of the everyday ordinary simplicity its oh so yummy. we can very easily forget how yummy it really is, take for granted the simplicity and ease it brings until we’re sitting filled with the cheesy goodness. the cheesy goodness that reminds us that there is always time to sit down and enjoy food with the people we love, even if it is just man 'n' cheese....

i know, what in the world could mac 'n' cheese possible have to do with grief? well for most people probably nothing, especially nothing of significance. however for me mac 'n'cheese has forever been changed. now whenever i think about mac 'n' cheese i'm reminded of the payoffs i get to experience everyday as a result of embracing a grief so long untouched. 

many many months ago i had a very disheartening conversations in therapy about.....mac 'n' cheese....the quick metaphor was that family was supposed to be like the ooey-gooey, heavenly, cheesy-goodness of homemade mac 'n' cheese. however for some, the experience of this mac 'n' cheese is just not that great, a meal that feels way overpriced and  definitely not worth the time or effort it took to make

for being willing to embrace a place of grief. tonight as i made homemade mac 'n' cheese for family dinner (all the prego ladies need their mac 'n'cheese) all i could do was smile. i smile because it reminds me of a conversation i experienced oh so long ago that at the time i had zero hope in.  touched on all my grief, a place of grief i wasn't sure i really wanted to embrace or face in any sense. and yet tonight my mac 'n' cheese was simply a pure and heavenly delight....embracing family and risking the love and life to the fullest, all at the cost of learning to grieve...