Eggs, eggs, eggs!

How do you like your eggs?

You would not believe how something so simple used to be such a difficult question for me. How can I not know how I like my eggs?

But genuinely, when I left Dmitry, I didn’t know. I felt that I could only eat eggs one way — over easy with sea salt sprinkled on top. I liked it well enough that way, but I was not free to have my opinion about how I like my eggs while I was with Dmitry.

I used to only ever eat my eggs over hard with fresh cracked pepper and couldn’t eat anything with a runny yolk. At the beginning, this was not an issue. But as time went on, he insisted that I was eating them incorrectly, and I had to try them with a runny yoke. The thought of this disgusted me (the consistency looked unappetizing to me), and I resisted for a long time. Eventually, I tried them, and from then on, if I ever didn’t eat them over easy, I was met with ridicule. If I wanted to eat them over easy with cracked pepper, that was met with ridicule as well.

If this sounds ridiculous to you, it’s because it was.

I will say that now I like a runny yolk, and I’m glad I eventually did try eggs prepared in that way. But I would have liked to try them when I was curious and ready, not because if I didn’t then I was somehow doing something wrong. If I ever tried to cook my own eggs a different way, it was as if I was insulting him, and he let me know in no uncertain terms. So eventually, I just did it his way; that’s the way I prepared our eggs, no matter what, whether he was there or not.

I also evidently scrambled them wrong, cheese omelets were too simple and therefore banned, and when he made pasta carbonara, I could cook the egg whites for Luna, but that was it.

If you haven’t guessed yet, this goes far beyond just eggs — Dmitry criticized every single thing that I did, to the point that I stopped doing anything the way I liked to do it and just did it his way to avoid his constant criticism. Though he did still manage to find ways to criticize me even when I did things his way. I’m focusing on just one part of that, eggs, because it highlights just how ridiculous it all was and how deep the damage ran.

I became so conditioned to this way of thinking that even after I left him, I still cooked my eggs the same way. I had literally forgotten that I like to put fresh cracked pepper on my eggs.

It took me six months to remember.

And once I did, I still had a hard time breaking out of the old habits. I felt like I was doing something wrong, like I was ruining my food. It took another 6 months for me to start feeling comfortable preparing my food the way I enjoy eating it.

So now if you ask me, “how do you like your eggs?” I have cracked the code, and I’ve got an over easy answer for you:

I like them over easy or medium with fresh cracked pepper on top. I still like my scrambled eggs overcooked; I think they are eggcellent with a little bit of caramelization on them, rather than super pale and fluffy. I find eggs benedict eggciting, I like deviled eggs with eggzactly the right amount of paprika, and in my opinion, potato salad is only a shell of itself without chopped up boiled egg. If breakfast eggzists in my world, it usually consists of eggs with buttered toast, bagel, or English muffin. It has been years since I had one, but writing this post has me thinking that I’d like to eat an eggnormous cheese omelet.

I have also discovered that egg puns crack me up (not sure if you noticed 😁) something I could never have enjoyed so much previously because they would have been eggnominious.

I’m giggling like a bad Batman villain over here. I’d better take my eggzit soon.

But before I go, one last thought. The little things like this that our abusers take away from us, the things that we give away slowly, slowly over time, regaining them is so precious. It seems so small, eggs. But when it comes down to it, it’s another piece of the puzzle that I’ve found and put into place. It’s another piece of me that I’ve reclaimed, and I’m never letting go of it again.

**READ ME (please)**
Two things!

One, please note that the names of everyone in this blog have been altered to protect the people I write about. My main goal is to explore my experiences and my growth, not air anyone’s dirty laundry out. Any likeness to people you know in real life are probably coincidental. (I mean what are the chances? It’s a pretty big world!)

Two, the thoughts and opinions I express in this blog are merely a result of my personal experiences to this point in my life. If there is anything I have misrepresented, overlooked, or have a blind spot for, feel free to leave a comment or email me at contact@livingbetween.net. (Yes, this includes typos. Let me fix my typos, please!) All I ask is that you always remain respectful.

Talk soon!
– Lynda –