Can You Understand It If You Can't Live It?

I feel certain changes after the surgery. I don't know if everyone has them, and I don't know if they're permanent (or if they're permanent I may just adapt to them until they're unnoticed anymore). But I know something is different.

Somehow divorcing the urge for physical hunger from the eating experience, coupled with the facts that I can't eat a lot in once sitting (lest I damage the pouch, since I so far haven't felt full or sick from overeating) and that I'm deathly afraid of experiencing the dumping syndrome or vomiting that comes from the surgery's negative reinforcement aspect while my abdomen still has a weeping wound on it, has changed how I view foods. I have become far more obsessed with watching food shows, watching the nuances of how to properly prepare and serve interesting meals. I daydream of what a restaurant would be like to run sometimes. I notice things I didn't notice before...things like the sausage, egg, and cheese Croissanwich from Burger King, which I used to love and could eat (at one time...look in the archives to see some gripes with our BK, and I may whine more about them in the future) two at a time easily, smells like it is using a very cheap sausage; the spice or...something...just smells off to me. Greasy. Yeah, I know, fast food is greasy? But something just is worse with them to me now, something I don't smell with a sausage, egg, and cheese McMuffin.

In other words, I've become obsessed with the technical effects of the food instead of just how much they can satisfy some other urge in my appetite. I love smelling foods and appreciating that aspect instead of just eating it.

But I think I annoy my wife because I'll ask to see her sandwiches when she orders something, or start asking questions about what I smell from her plate or from the kitchen as she's preparing something.

These things have had me try my hand with making a couple things in the kitchen. I don't often try cooking. Before I was married I used to enjoy making cakes. Nothing professional, nothing too elaborate...mainly novelty cakes and experimenting with some variations in recipes (try adding tomato soup to cake batter, or pumpkin? Pudding instead of icing? Not bad!). But in our living situation it would go to waste.

In considering making meals what normally happens is that the daughter makes whatever she wants because she wouldn't like what was made, the youngest wouldn't eat much whether he liked it or not, and so basically it didn't seem to be quite so economical for making meals for two compared to the time and effort in just spending ten bucks at the fast-food joints.

Plus I, like my wife, prefer not doing dishes. We're just lazy that way, I suppose. I would get a little resentful when the situation was such that if she cooked dinner, I'd clean up; if I cooked dinner, I'd clean up. It's one of my house chores so that's all and good, but still if I were to be honest I still would feel pangs of resentment for it. I'm human.

So I normally didn't make things.

But after the surgery I tried making a simple polenta and chicken meal to welcome my wife home from her weeklong trip away. I was proud of how it seemed to turn out, and I felt good that she seemed to enjoy it. I was even surprised that the daughter had some and liked it. She took it to work to finish up for lunches.

I tried making a second dish, a pumpkin-cornmeal dish, to use up some of the pumpkin in the pantry and leftover cornmeal from the previous meal. It didn't get the same reception as the previous dish...sure, it's a side dish, and the spicing was a little off. I don't think it was bad, just not the kind of thing that would get a second trip to the buffet for. Which is also evident because it's been in the fridge since the first taste and will probably be thrown out mostly intact.

I picked up some recipes ideas for a Reuben Pizza. With the right ingredients it should be quite aromatic and flavorful, and I asked the wife if she'd like to go to the supermarket and we'd get some of the things needed to prepare that for her dinner if she'd like me to make it for her. She replied asking me if I was trying to fatten her up and why I was trying to feed her all the time.

I hadn't really thought of it this way...I never consciously was trying to thwart her efforts to lose weight. I was trying to make something good, see if I was capable of making something that would make people say, "Wow! that was great!" I know I'd fail more often than hit a single or a double in the game, but still...I enjoyed it. It smells great. And once in awhile I might do something well.

I got to wondering if part of it is simply the fact that if you've not had this disconnect in your hunger and appetite then you may not be able to truly understand what it's like to experience such a change. It's a classic excuse, but there is a truth to statement, a truth no less valid than the feeling that normals can't know what it's like after twenty years to even have the option of riding on a roller coaster open to you, experiences normals take for granted so they can't feel that extra dimension of giddiness of at having new options open to you.

This means that despite having someone around trying to support me during these changes, I still experiences times of profound loneliness and alienation. I suppose I just have to adapt and deal with it, but it's still not simple, and can lead to a greater emotional strain; while I wasn't a patient person before the surgery by any measure, I find now that I'm on an even shorter fuse, snapping at people for minor infringements on my nerves.

And worse yet I have no idea how to convey what I'm thinking or feeling to others in a way that they can understand, and seeing as for some reason the world still doesn't revolve around me yet my own self-absorbed journey means less understanding of what it's like for them or what is going on in their life, making me wonder just how suitable a person I am to be around at all, that maybe it would be better if I were a hermit in the woods.

Simply put, it's a wonderful downward spiral that despite my outbursts I still try to keep the darkest parts leashed up because, really, what are the people around me going to do about these feelings? If they can't understand the urge to try cooking an interesting meal, how are they going to understand these things in my head, things I can barely understand or keep controlled?

I'm hoping this is primarily just part of the "hardest month" I was warned about, and after awhile these issues will go away or I'll adapt. But right now I'm still trying to just hold on in the ride and try not falling out of the car along the way.