Thermos 3-Tier Bento #54

 

Here we have a "meeting myself in the struggle" lunch: Salad of romaine, shredded carrot, and red onion with some homemade lemon tahini dressing; Wegmans Don't Have a Cow meatballs simmered in the last of my red pepper pasta sauce; and some long grain white rice.

It had been over a month since my last in-person grocery trip; the deliberate, planned out trip plus the long delay has taught me a lot about what is really needed, and although I prefer to get fresh things more often (I miss bananas!), I know now that it is perfectly reasonable to go shopping every 4-8 weeks if I can get deliveries of shelf-stable things pretty easily. But it has also made me less wasteful as I've continually looked for ways to use up this and that here and there. I don't know if the red pepper sauce would have turned up this way otherwise.

But in terms of why this is meeting myself in the struggle, this is a very minimal effort meal, because I already had the sauce. I got up in the morning, put rice in the rice cooker, set the meatballs to simmer on the stove, washed some lettuce, shredded a bit of carrot, sliced an onion, and stirred up an easy dressing and there was lunch. It was tasty, and the rice and meatballs stayed warm for my in-car picnic (while the salad did not warm up--have I mentioned before how ingenious this Thermos design is!), and it also seemed to hit all the high points--veggies, proteins, carbohydrates, fats. 

I'm learning so much lately about how to take care of myself and how to work with the ebb and flow of energy I have, and how to be kinder to myself when it ebbs. I hope you can do that, too, as the traumas that are visiting us all these days alternately weigh heavily and and mysteriously lift in cycles. Seize the day when you can, and just let it come when you can't.