Expiration Dates
An essay about recognizing when what once gave you life has run its course, and finding the courage to choose differently.
I think we can all agree that expiration dates are a scam. Who on God’s green Earth has the authority to establish when something expires, and how can we be sure that their prediction is accurate? Why would a bottle of lavender lotion expire August 22 rather than August 23? What if it’s tucked behind body gel, and we don’t reunite until August 24? If I live on the wild side and lather up after August 22, I will no doubt have a weird feeling about using a technically expired product that I would have felt fine about a day prior. Doesn’t this seem a bit arbitrary? It all feels a little murky, if you ask me.
If it’s this confusing to determine when to toss pancake mix, how the hell are we supposed to know when relationships have expired? Most of us would agree that the criteria of simply not getting ill as a consequence of being involved with someone isn’t sufficient. Human beings aren’t rotten cantaloupe, and we should have loftier standards than simply avoiding the negative side effects of engaging with toxicity.
I was just chatting with an old friend who was complaining about a girls’ night out she had committed to. When I asked her why she wasn’t excited, her response was that she doesn’t particularly like this group of mom friends. I gasped. “Then why are you going??” Forgive me, but isn’t it reasonable to apply the same thoughtful criteria to our relationships that we do to shampoo? How come we’re allowed to reevaluate the integrity of our snack bars, but we can’t say no to a dinner involving people we don’t even like? The person who at one point in your life made you feel the most alive might in this chapter drain your precious life force. Someone you once revered as brilliant and prolific might in this season feel inauthentic.
But some of us will do anything to avoid the suspicion that we are doomed to exist in solitude. So, we skate along in relationships that are “safe.” But is a relationship truly “safe” when it points to how unsafe we feel in our own skin? Does holding on make us feel like a better person because we’re not disappointing others?
Recently, my husband and I took our kids to Miami to visit family. Every spring break, my mother would take my sister and me to Florida for a beach vacation, so there was something incredibly nostalgic about being there with my own little people. One afternoon, my husband returned home to find my kids eating Pillsbury crescent rolls. (Not gonna lie: I totally felt like Betty Draper from Mad Men while making these, and I wanted to throw on some high heels and light up while shrieking at my children to run outside and play. How is it that 1950s mothers looked so glamorous while poisoning, ignoring, and/or verbally abusing their children?) He opened the pantry to discover a collection of cereals, goodies, and snacks that were completely unlike the “organic whenever possible” versions I buy at home.
“What is this?” my husband asked, the creases in his forehead deepening. “What possessed you to buy rainbow confetti Rice Krispies Treats?”
“Who says no to rainbow confetti?!” I cried out.
With fervor, I introduced my children to the edible highlights of my spring break days in Sarasota, Florida. I wanted my kids to experience the same joy, via Nilla Wafers and Kix cereal (which should be renamed Crack cereal). I reenacted the sugar highs of my childhood with shameless glee, hoping that my children might carve the same delighted neuropathways into their plastic brains.
More often than I even realize, my cellular memory of the past keeps me from understanding what is happening in this very real, very present moment. In a sense, I am reliving the days of Fruit Roll-Ups instead of consciously creating the meal I want to consume—the meal that will truly feed me (and others) instead of providing temporary comfort. I am choosing what I have always chosen because it once tasted delicious. I’m not sure what the expiration date of a Fruit Roll-Up is (or what irrational math is required to calculate it), but just for today, my commitment to myself is to lean into the nourishment that will feed the person I am today.
Who feeds you at this stage of your life and why?
A lot of wisdom here. I shudder to think I served my children a popular brand of French bread pizza for an after school snack. I would never do it today. The box was barely big enough to list all the ingredients. We learn along the way. But the memory of doing then what I felt was good for them nurtures me today.