You see, I cant fucking cook. I grew up on a monotonous saga of frozen teriyaki fillets, Dad’s Special Secret Chicken Recipe, freezer (and on unusual occasions homemade) mac ‘n cheese, classic American A-1 adorned steak, and endless meatloaf.

My sack lunches, which my father continued to pack for me well into my senior year, were humorously predictable. A couple of the kids in my 10th grade homeroom even had a ritual contest of who could guess, most accurately, what exciting contents were veiled in my brown paper bag labeled “AMANDA” in black sharpie. It usually went something like this: one PB&J or ham ‘n cheese, always wheat bread; tortilla chips or Wheat Thins, always a generous portion of about 15; and one Chewy or Nutri-grain bar—we had about two variations of each stocked in the cupboard to ensure a daily surprise. Then there were the inevitables: two Oreos and one 6 oz squeeze-pack of overly-sweetened Minute Maid lemonade. Occasionally an apple might be thrown into the mix. I still don’t know why my dad bothered to label the lunches; he put the same damn things in all three that he packed, morning after morning, year after year.

Anyways, to get back to my point, I was never really exposed to very much cooking that inspired me to try to cooking on my own. And clearly I was accustomed to repetition. These facts, in accordance with the extremely low cost of eggs and my uniquely delectable way of preparing them made scrambled eggs a staple in my college diet. But I prefer not to call them scrambled eggs—it doesn’t quite do my recipe justice. I think that Scrambled Heart Attack is much more appropriate. Let me share with you my five-star formula:

Scrambled Heart Attack

4 eggs (shells removed)
An insane amount of butter (2+ Tbsp)
An insane amount of mayo (I usually throw in five or six knife-fulls)
A hearty amount of mozzarella cheese (emphasis on the hearty)
½ a flour tortilla, or more if desired, cut into strips
Salt ‘n Peppa

Put the hunk of butter in the pan, on the stove, on medium heat. Put the eggs in a bowl and add the mayo. Whisk rapidly until it begins to resemble cottage cheese (the curds are, of course, little nuggets of mayo). Throw a bunch of mozzarella in the mix. Don’t be shy…use two hands. Now add the salt ‘n peppa, then the tortilla strips. Stir it a bit to make sure the tortillas get good and wet.

By now the pan should be thickly covered with a film of butter. Add the rest of the contents of your future heart attack to the pan. Sprinkle on some more cheese, for good measure. Stir it around a bit so the butter gets evenly distributed. Proceed to scramble the mixture. If you don’t understand how to do this part, then you are even more culinarily disabled than I am, and I recommend you go ask your mom.
This recipe is a true gem—a delicacy that we must cherish in the young years of our speedy metabolism. I strongly urge you to try it once; you may be pleasantly surprised at just how tasty eggs can get when you add toxic amounts of rich, artery-clogging foods to them.

2. Build a giant waterslide that starts on the Moon and dumps into the Ocean.

3. Erase greed & racism & sexism & all the other terrible isms.

4. Grow super long arms and swing like a monkey on telephone wires to get across town.

5. Apparate.

6. Make music and color-changing fire come out of my fingertips. Especially for when I dance : )

7. Have a giant cuddle-puddle with lions and tigers and ocelots

8. Attain true peace & understanding on a global scale.

Yes, I was the annoying kid who dug out the chunks of cookie dough. I was the kid who sneered when Dad brought home Vanilla instead of Double Fudge Brownie. I was the college-age lurker in the kitchen stealing mounds of her boyfriend’s Half Baked—and I was furious when another roommate finished off my pint.

But a lot of this changed several months ago, while visiting at my Grandpa’s house.

About one year ago—to the day, almost—my Grandma passed away. She was at the tender old age of 87 when she heaved her last heavy sigh in a stark white hospital room warmed with familiar faces. I was delivering pizzas when it happened, but I had spent most of the previous day at the hospital. It’s a difficult sight… to see someone whom you’ve always known as cheerfully active to be paralyzed and withering—squeezing every last breath out while loving family members clutch desperately, preying each sigh is not her last.

What was even more difficult, though, was witnessing the pain and struggle my Grandpa was going through. He spent every single waking moment clutching his wife’s fragile hands and speaking to her softly, letting her know that he would always be there. My Grandpa had lived through the Great Depression, served in the Navy during WWII, and watched five children grow and blossom families of their own. But the depth of hurt and sorrow shown in his translucent blue eyes that afternoon could not be rivaled. Only the loss of his most beloved, his lover and best friend of over six decades, could spawn such grief.

Like a river, life has only one direction: forward. I went to college. Pieced together a new nest on new branches, met a new set of freshly sharpened friends, and swapped ideas in classrooms like we used to swap cards on sidewalks. By mid-winter break, the memories of my Grandma were far from forgotten, but tucked back behind more recent headlines and nineteen-year-old dramas.

I had seen my Grandpa several times since my Grandma’s passing, and every day still seemed to be a struggle for him. He was constantly reminded of his loneliness, as he walked about in his small rambler with only the ghosts and memories of his past. My Mom and I were visiting him on an early March afternoon, and my Grandpa’s heart seemed as heavy as ever. We made casual conversation for a while, and then my Mom excused herself to the kitchen. There was a stretch of silence as my Grandpa gazed off into space. As my mother rinsed dishes in the faint background, my Grandpa quietly confessed, “It’s a hard life…” I could see the same aching in his glossy, red-rimmed eyes that I saw back in August, back when he still had something physical to hold on to.

My mother broke the serene silence with a question, “Would anybody like some ice cream? Looks like we’ve got Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough and Mint Chocolate Chip.”

“I’ll have some Mint Chocolate Chip,” I replied.

My Grandpa snapped his head toward me with unexpected glee, and exclaimed, “Mint Chocolate Chip? That was your Grandmother’s favorite!” His foggy eyes seemed to immediately brighten and his face, just moment before lined and sagging with grief, became animated, vivacious. All afternoon I had not seen him show even the slightest sign of happiness or excitement. He let out a good laugh, a laugh I had not heard for months, and reminisced, “She always had a great weakness for Mint Chocolate Chip…”

My Grandma was an extraordinary woman, a woman I grew to look up to. She had a voice like a songbird, both when she was speaking and when she was singing. When I was very young, she taught me ballet and tap dance. In my kindergarten talent show, we did a duet tap dance called The Old Soft Shoe, and when I was in first grade, I ventured off to do a solo piece—the Irish Jig—while she accompanied me on piano. For my performance, she sewed me an elaborate green and white dress with a shiny four-leaf clover on the front. I felt like a star.

My Grandma was an incredibly respectable woman. By the time she was my age, she was an accomplished and sought after dancer, taking part in glamorous productions in booming cities like Chicago. The thing I admire most about my Grandma, though, was in her attitude, not her accomplishments. She was always glowing with happiness and a smile brighter and more honest than the sun, welcoming everybody with open arms and an open heart. I don’t think that woman was even capable of producing a single negative thought.

Every time I enjoy a bowl of mint chocolate chip, it’s my small way of honoring my Grandma.

Up until this morning, when I picked up my pen for the first time since I began a journaling leave of absence about a year ago, my thirteen-year-old camp memory of my greatest fear had been eradicated from my mind. Today it felt almost unnatural for me to write freely from the inside out. But once I forced myself to dive in, translations of the ancient and hoarded hieroglyphics carved deep within my heart began flowing as easily as a leaf down a stream.

I began reflecting on the past year…
revisiting ugly memories I’d hoped to never visit again,
picking at the same lock I’d worked on for weeks then eventually ignored,
and hunting answers to the questions I was asked repeatedly and repeatedly.

And as I did so, that one, specific memory from camp continued to pop up.

Adrift on a twin-sized raft of muffled voices and desperation,
afraid to acknowledge the cold depths lapping below or the possibilities above,
I chose to get lost in a thick brown and bittersweet fog
that obscured the painful mistakes and the will to construct a happier future
because every way I turned, I found my greatest fear.

I sometimes paralyze beneath the unadulterated eyes of Truth, and
my knees buckle under the intense but purposeful breath of fate.
Maybe this is genetic aftermath gifted to me from my debilitatingly stubborn father.
She thought of it as a stereotypical mentality, engraved into my subconscious by society defining thousands of generations of women.
Perhaps it’s ignorance or selfishness.
But probably it’s just fear.

I spoke to you the other day, and you said, in what I imagined to be a terse tone, “You don’t have to appease everyone.” Maybe now you’ll understand that appeasing everyone is the one thing I desire most, the one thing I fear failing, and that I have learned the hard way that it is impossible.