I was going to call this post "Macaroni & Cheese Matters." But then I realized that my message is bigger than Macaroni & Cheese. It's about my own personal journey to independence. And it all started with Macaroni & Cheese.
My whole life I've loved the stuff. I've loved it in all its forms from gourmet and baked, to Cheez Whizzed on the stovetop, to the kind that comes in a box for 39 cents and has a packet of powdered cheese-ish stuff that you mix with milk and butter. I couldn't imagine someone not loving Macaroni & Cheese, quite frankly. That is until I got my first and only live-in boyfriend.
Not long after "Carlton" (we'll call him "Carlton" because that's his actual name) moved in, he informed me that he hated Macaroni & Cheese...in fact he hated it so much he didn't want to see it or smell it in the house. I couldn't imagine life without Mac & Cheese, but I sucked it up for the good of "the relationship" and spent the next three years going cold turkey on M&C...oh, occasionally I would fall off the wagon when he was out of town and gorge myself on it like a junkie looking for a fix, but for the most part I led an M&C-free existence for 3 whole years of my life. It was pure torture.
When my fiance' called me from work one day to abruptly inform me that he "needed to be on his own;" had found an apartment and was moving out that very day, I was completely devastated. I think my ego took the biggest blow, but I was also heartbroken. I mean, despite all his flaws, I actually liked the guy. For months I was inconsolable and sleepless, as I watched half of our stuff being carted out of the house by his buddies, saw my bank account hit rock bottom and contemplated the sobering reality that I might never get married.
But somewhere in the depths of my despair a glimmer of hope emerged. A sign that I could actually get through the heartache and come out OK on the other side. And that glimmer was the sweet reality that I could once again eat Macaroni & Cheese...any time I damn well felt like it. So, I eventually pulled myself out from under the covers and got the pasta pot boiling. And once I realized how good my new-found independence could be (and just how much I missed my Mac & Cheese), I moved on to other important things...like getting the cat I had always wanted (the fiance' claimed he was allergic)...getting the tattoo I had been thinking about for years (Carlton thought his was good but didn't want me to have one)...wearing the clothes that suited me...watching the movies I like to watch and decorating a house with all the girlie things my heart desired.
Getting my Mac&Cheese back was just the first of many steps on the journey to getting my independence back. To this day, I never eat it without saying a little prayer of thanks for my freedom to do so. And to think how close I came to a life without M&C, cats, tattoos and pastel sheets. Scary!
P.S. The photo at top is of the Williams Sonoma recipe for M&C and it's one of my personal favorites. Here's a link to the Williams Sonoma recipe: http://www.williams-sonoma.com/recipe/macaroni-and-cheese.html
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