Chocolateportation

It isn’t uncommon to have people turn their head away from chocolate. They tend to be lactose intolerant, allergic or simply don’t like the taste of it. I was never one to ever turn my head away – although my mother would have bought me a whole house at the age of 12 if I ever did. Chocolate was my support system. I would overly indulge in it when the boy I loved kept running around with my heart in the unrelenting grip of his palm or simply have some since I was able to finish the day.

That is no longer my reality. The more years I passed, the more my hormones adjusted the dietary preferences of the stomach of mine that has been cursed since birth (a hereditary defect that mother dearest decided to pass on to me along with her persistent migraines instead of her dimples which, mind you, would have irreplaceably complimented my showing off of my teeth). Just the thought of taking a sniff of the Nutella jar in the back of my aunt’s kitchen cupboard brings tears to my eyes; not quite sure if it is due to the overflow of emotions from the nostalgia it gives me or the knowledge that just a spoon of that will send me spiralling to the bathroom.

There is, however, a silver lining to the end of one of my most defining personality traits. The loss of my dependency on something so superficial as my support system forced me to search within myself and that was the beginning of the end of me.

The old, and quite frankly misogynistic saying, ‘the way to a man’s heart is his stomach’, was tested and failed when it came to the man who cried as I walked and almost tripped down the aisle. I was at the supermarket, picking up some of that weirdly mashed baby food they sell in bottles for my nephew. It would not be accurate to term me as a spendthrift, but I tend to walk around shops because even if I don’t already know it, I feel like I will find something that I truly want to buy once I see it. As usual, I walked down the aisles and faced a stare off with my number one frenemy: the Belgian double chocolate fudge cake. I was lost in the listing of pros and cons, with the cons winning, when a random voice chooses to say, “ You know, it will last longer if you take a picture.” That, my friend, was a very cringy line and I turned to make sure the horrendous culprit knew it as well, but I couldn’t help cackling as he tried to hold back his laugh.

The universe…it’s quite the interesting little pickle pineapple, isn’t it? To be honest, everyone must have a significant other that they are meant to meet. How else can you explain the unrelenting desire one has to try and fill the inexplicable hole in their being? I was content with my life and whom I was, but the second he came within a hand’s width from me, it felt as though all was complete. He felt it as well.

I could go on and on about the developments: the first time we slept on a FaceTime call, the first apple pie we shared from McDonald’s, the first time his mother sat me down to teach me how to cook his favourite pasta. All of it - yet that would be exhausting. Especially since the reason I’m even thinking about this in the first place is because I’m hiding from the guests of our wedding in the bathroom behind the stairwell after eating a slice of our chocolate wedding cake. Ugh. I just hope I don’t ruin my dress…or the smell of it.