Growing up, leftover choices were illusions that fell on either side of the spectrum. Some of us hate to revisit what we had just yesterday. The taste still lingers on our tongues and has lost its appeal. New is enticing. Old is tired, done and over. Others of us do not disdain repetition. Revisiting allows us to discover new and unknown flavors from something that we found comfort within. Yesterday promises something safe and known for today. 

It saves us time, it makes us the same. 

The day after that delicious once-a-week dinner might find me scrounging for a few more scraps. How can I make something new from this thing I’ve already had, and had again? While the meals that I could have done without felt like they lingered on for days because I was exhausted at the mere thought of creating something new, no matter what ingredients were at my fingertips. 

Such a simple concept, that so many of us know. Maybe you love leftovers. Maybe you loathe them and that meatloaf, too. 

I went to lunch and the person across from me was talking about parenting and our choices. How some of the choices we make means our children are presented parenting leftovers. All that is left of us is what we have to offer them. 

That word rolled around in my head for days and weeks. Leftovers. 

The past few years have been run on my leftovers. My children forced to eat the same thing over and over without choice or end. I hadn’t considered the cost they would pay as I pulled my broken pieces back into a discernible pile and swept myself into something that could stand on my own two feet again. I didn’t have the time to consider, even when time was all I had. My brain was caught in trauma, loss, grief, fear, and depression. I was faced with all the things I lacked as I pulled desperately at the hem of my future. 

Within 6 months time, I lost a job, one sister and her two children, and a marriage. Half a year couldn’t cover the years I would never know. One of these alone would be enough to leave many decidedly resolved to appreciate leftovers. What would be left of you after you lost your livelihood? Your sister and her children? Your 12-year long marriage? 

I’m not sure what was left of me during this time. Everything happened and choices had to be made. Except, when you do not have support, when you cannot financially be fearless, and when your heart is stomped apart, you do what you do. I was lucky to have a choice. One. One option to get free of the place where everything was broken, but it wasn’t the choice I would have wanted had more been available. I would have wanted comfort, confidence, ease for my children, and me. I would have wanted security, sensibility, steadiness. I would have wanted a full 8-course meal of options, but that wasn’t on the table. 

Regathering myself has taken a few years. Just a couple really. To find myself sure-footed and sound. But two years were more unsteady than they will ever understand. I cried. I cried in bed, the shower, the corner. Over and over. Tears for the things I had lost, the unknown present, and all the things I couldn’t provide them. They will never know how many tears I shed on their behalf or how I did everything I could to make the abnormal okay. 

Now I see that my leftovers are being spat out in some ways. I am seen as a failure, which isn’t all that wrong. I am seen as not having done more- or enough, even though it wasn’t solely my responsibility to put food on the table. I will bear the burden of not being enough though, because in their eyes, it was me who made the choices. I was the one who faced them day in and out- hiding my pain, feeling unbearable guilt for not doing more- even when I was making more happen. I pulled myself together, but that two years will never be fulfilling or full for them. 

If only they could understand that I wanted fresh, exotic, and new but all I could offer were the scraps of what was left of me. I made the most of me for you- while others made nothing of themselves, and still I will be the one to take your blame.

If that’s what you need, so be it. 

I hope you never have to live off of less than again.