I admit- that in our early days of marriage, I refused to let you cook because I was insecure.
I dreaded those 90-hour work weeks as a young doctor, and told myself that cooking was the one thing about being a wife that I wanted to feel in control of, to perfect.
So I forbid you from the kitchen. Cooking became a perfectionistic pursuit. Not so much that I enjoyed it, as much as it gave me a sense of identity, comfort, control.
If I could do it right, I mustn’t be such a bad wife after all. Even though I worked too hard, got grumpy, had a poor temper.
It was my guilt crutch.
What being away for 7 weeks in Africa taught me was this- cooking is not my identity. Being a cook doesn’t tick me off as a good wife as much as someone who knows how to vacuum.
But most of all, what it did was to wrest the compulsive need for control out of my hands to be a perfect wife, because-
You taught yourself to cook.
So imagine the tears in my eyes when I came home to a tidied home, a sparkling kitchen, a clean fridge, my favorite flowers… then sat down for my very first dinner in ten years of marriage to two dishes home-cooked by you, after being away from home for 50 days. My favorite roasted vegetables and favorite Cantonese style eggplant with minced pork.
In the most unexpected and strangest of ways, I learnt what I should have known from the start at the altar- I now know my identity as your wife isn’t rooted in what I do or do not do. I’ve learnt to let go.
Strangely, the house is cleaner, quieter. The kitchen is a more enjoyable place- with two of us gently bustling, talking, laughing, lightly touching- a place of ease and comfort shared by two, rather than a storm of frenetic activity by one.
For all your heart, for all your hopes all these years that I would stop trying so hard and just be content with who I am because you’ve always loved me that way without me trying to be anyone else – thank you. ❤️
