When I Realized Pre-packaged Food Was For Me, My Entire Outlook On Life Changed.

When I realized pre-packaged food was for me, my entire outlook on life changed.

Let me explain.

I remember walking through the grocery store with my mother as a teen and her making a bitter comment about how everything had more packaging now. De-shelled hard boiled eggs in plastic, cut fruit, pre-portioned salads, all of it was "laziness" to her. She insisted people were getting lazier to the point where if my brother ate pizza from the fridge, she would chastise him for not heating it. She would say "you deserve warm pizza" as a way of saying you should do something the "right way" because it's worth doing.

This isn't because my mother had no concept of people with disabilities, she is disabled herself. However, in raising me, she taught me to hide that disability, to try to be on everyone else's level so we aren't seen as weaker. That laziness is worse than being disabled and there's simply no excuse for taking shortcuts. I don't think she intended to teach me this, but her own internalized ableism was so loud.

When I became an adult, I realized I hated cooking. The prep was tedious, I almost always have dishes in the sink, there's cleanup after, my back hurts, my eyes burn, it's too hot and in the beginning, I got overwhelmed to the point of crying. Leftovers were almost never eaten becuase heating them up (the "correct" way to eat them) was an extra step that made me not want to put the effort in. I thought I was lazy and felt ashamed when I wanted something to eat but couldn't bring myself to make it.

At some point, I finally said "I'm tired. I don't care how much packaging it is, I don't care how lazy it is, I'm going to get meal kits."

It was life-changing. Dinner takes 30 minutes to make. Everything is portioned. The directions are clear. I don't hate it anymore. I want salads in bags. I want eggs that don't take three steps to eat. It's not laziness, it's accessible! I don't have to make a meal, I can eat the raw vegetables, have pasta with butter, eat a granola bar! There's no right way to feed myself!

I made things SO HARD on myself because I wasn't acknowledging my disability or my depression and they didn't need to be hard! I didn't need to go around the store saying "is that really necessary?" Because it IS necessary for me! It's brilliant! It's so helpful!

Accessibility takes so many forms and overcoming internalized guilt for not being able-bodied or mentally well enough to handle tasks other handle easily is incredibly freeing. Obviously I'm lucky to be in the position to have this option avaliable to me, but I kept myself from it for far too long.

I do deserve warm pizza. I can have it delivered.

GUYS I JUST SAW THIS ON TWITTER AND I AM DYING

ok hanging out on reddit is actually a great idea. someone said they didnt like henry cavill as geralt because witchers move "10x faster than a human", but cavill only moves at human speeds, and someone replied they were "fascinated by what actor they would suggest instead" given the limitation that all actors are human.

fuck google docs so fucking much

i've just lost hundreds of docs and pdfs and i'm beyond pissed right now

they're all permanently gone

small dick jokes are shitty and you should feel shitty

My dear lgbt+ kids,

If you want a conversation to keep going, you have to keep giving them something to reply to.

A (super oversimplified!) example for not doing so:

Person A: "How was your weekend?"

Person B "Good."

Person B may give such a short reply because they don't want to annoy Person A by stuffing too much info into their response or because they don't want to embarrass themselves by getting too personal right away. But short, closed-off replies like that are often seen as a sign of disinterest or even annoyance. Person A is likely to assume that Person B doesn't want to talk more about their weekend (or even that they do not want to talk to them at all) and won't ask further questions.

This type of reply cuts off the flow of the conversation. Many people make the (subconscious) assumption "Well, if Person A really cares about me, they will keep asking". But from Person A's point of view, asking more questions after a closed-off reply likely seems like prying, like crossing a boundary and bothering Person B with unwanted conversation - which they avoid because they care about Person B!

You may think now "Yeah, makes sense but I don't want to launch into a huge monologue and embarrass myself! What if I give a detailed answer and it turns out they just wanted some quick small-talk?" Those are good points - a detailed description of everything you did over the weekend would not always be the appropriate answer, either (and if your natural response tends to be on the shorter side, you wouldn't feel comfortable doing that anyway, so that'd be useless advice).

So, what to do instead? The important part is to open up your reply. It can still be short - just try to put in one little thing Person A can reply to.

This can be as direct as a question:

Person A: "How was your weekend?"

Person B "Good, thankyou. How was yours?"

Or it can be a statement they can reply to:

Person A: "How was your weekend?"

Person B "Good, I went to the beach!"

As you see in these (again, very oversimplified) examples, you don't need to give a long speech or put in lots of private details. You don't force Person A to do so, either. You just give them something to reply to if they want to do so. They can choose to deepen the conversation by telling you details about their weekend now or asking about your beach trip - and if they really just wanted to exchange some pleasant small-talk, they can go that route and give a shorter, more superficial answer.

In either case, you signaled interest in a conversation by giving an open reply and are likely to leave a positive impression on them!

With all my love,

Your Tumblr Dad