Food decisions make me cranky

Food is a big problem for me. I haven't been able to figure out why, in years of trying to sort it out, that planning meals puts me in such a bad mood. I recently admitted to Mr. J. that the nightly discussions of what to eat for dinner make me want to run away from home.

It was sort of a shock to hear myself say it, and I'm sure it was a little bit of a surprise for him too. I felt badly about that, but it's the truth.

When I was growing up, mealtimes were serious business. My mom did lots of cooking and freezing, so dinner was always cooked even if she was at work or home late. Breakfast was always hot, lunch was always brown-bagged, and dinner had most of the necessary food groups. Even though money was tight and schedules conflicted for much of my childhood, we had that meal-time problem sorted out.

I don't remember having a lot of input on what we ate as a child. I was given choices if I didn't like what was prepared, but mostly food just showed up on the table and I ate it.

And maybe that's where my frustration comes from: maybe I just don't want to have to make decisions about it. Maybe I just want the food to magically appear for me. One facet of my marriage is that neither of us make unilateral decisions. Which, really, is perfect half the time. Some decisions, though, I honestly don't care about and can't bear to have conversations about them.

I know this makes me incredibly unreasonable. I am trying to figure it out, but mostly I don't know where to start.