My Authenticity: Caring Is Not Always Sharing |
I am generous in many areas of my life. I enjoy giving gifts to my close friends and family, and still adore shopping for just the right birthday or friendship card. I gladly help someone who might need my support, whether it is a ride, a meal sent to their house, or just an ear for listening.
I am also a recovering burned-toast-syndrome woman (literally and figuratively), someone who, for countless years, ate the overly blackened leftover toast while I made fresh, golden-brown squares for my sons and husband, for I felt that they deserved the better version. This putting-others-first attitude transferred into unnecessary forced self-deprivation. This was my younger self, but in my later years, as a mother of adult children and seeing the years ahead quickly disappearing, I have spent more time focused on my own needs with time to write, solitary walks, and reading on my swing chair. In most all areas of my life, I am naturally giving of myself and my time, but, quite frankly, I do not enjoy sharing food.
Thankfully, my children have not inherited my food stinginess; they inherited their father’s generosity of all things edible. His common mantra is: “Here, try this?” At meals, my sons and their families' forks fly among them, their partners, and their children. Everyone divides their delectables into portions for others. They are doing it right, more graciously and........