on hunger

& the scale of my ambition.

FYI: Mentions disordered eating.

still from Pretty Woman, sourced from Pinterest.

There was a time when I wouldn’t eat oatmeal.

No oatmeal, or granola.

Only half a bagel, which turned into a quarter, which turned into none.

For four years.

There was a time when I wouldn’t eat dairy.

I have a mild allergy!, I’d say.

No dairy.

No gluten.

Only two eggs a day. But now that I think about it, I might have an allergy to those, too. 

No bananas– too many carbs.

No white bread– too many carbs.

Actually, no bread at all– only occasionally. Only as a treat.

I have a mild allergy, you know. 

No oils.

Not olive or vegetable or avocado. Speaking of avocados, only half. On a salad. 

Never butter. 

On anything. 

Ever. 

I’d pour black coffee into a gurgling stomach, the hot liquid sloshing angrily as I walked circles around the quad to spite myself– to spite my body– for daring to hunger. 

I was 21 and I hated my life and myself and I didn’t know how to change any of it, and I was terrified I’d feel that way forever. I’d dug my heels into the path I thought was right, cutting away vital pieces of myself in the process, no longer able to recognize the girl who stared back at me as I washed my face every morning. 

sourced from Pinterest, artist unknown.

I knew I wanted more– no, different– and I choked back the dreams that kept bubbling up, washing them down with black coffee, and numbing them with miles of steps in the mornings and copious amounts of tequila with a splash of lime La Croix (never again) in the evenings.

editing note: I don’t often take the time to acknowledge that who I am today, writing at the window of my loft, candles lit and tea steaming beside me, is exactly who that miserable 21-year-old so hoped to be. <3

Why did I want more than what I’d been given? Was that allowed? Was I ungrateful?

I looked to my peers, at all these women– just girls, in retrospect– who seemed so sure, so unwavering in the futures they’d mapped out. So many, seemingly happy to sacrifice themselves to the gods of “well, that’s just how it’s always been done.” 

And who am I to judge anyone else’s dreams? Who am I to point a finger and declare someone is settling for a life that’s a size too small?

Let me be clear: I’m not here to pass judgment on anyone's choices, please do not misunderstand. The beauty of, well, life, is that we each yearn for different outcomes. This is not judgment, this is the acknowledgement that we live in a society, and grow up with varying cultural standards, that teach us to be afraid of any impulse that pulls us from the steady current of the status quo– whatever that status quo may look like. 

This is the acknowledgement that many people wake up one day, finding themselves halfway through life with unrealized dreams collecting dust in the attic of their soul. I will not pretend I know you, or what’s best for you, or what fears keep you tossing into the early morning. But I do hope that one day, you take the time to venture up there, to sit with all the relics of the life you imagined for yourself– even the wildest– and I hope you have the courage to dust a few off, bring them down and see how they fit into your reality. 

---

At the beginning of this year, I went to a luncheon for work at a shiny country club sitting high atop the hills of my city. Held in a grand ballroom bustling with men and women in business professional, hands shook as pleasantries, business cards and smiles were exchanged while wading through the buffet line. 

Seated at white-clothed tables set with salad forks and sparkling crystal and fancy crackers accompanied by shell-shaped pats of butter, the women cut small bites of pork tenderloin, oiled greens and steamed vegetables, wiping their lipsticked mouths with napkins as they chewed. The men at the table took hearty bites, talking amongst themselves between each one, leaning across aisles to shake hands with acquaintances, legs spread beneath the white linen, unselfconscious of the space they took up; of the hunger they satiated.  

As we finished our lunch– knives and forks placed in a prim X across half eaten food– the speaker began droning on. Something about community initiatives– blah, blah, blah. Then, a tap on my shoulder:

Can I sit here?

The question's owner was a pixie of a woman, middle-aged and elegant, with red glasses and a plum-colored velvet jacket, gesturing to my work bag taking up the empty seat beside me. 

I moved my things, muttering an apology. 

She sat with one leg crossed under her, immediately picking up a fancy cracker, breaking it in half and chomping on it. She giggled and “aw-ed” at the speaker. Her knife lightly clanged against the porcelain dish as she cut into the untouched pats of butter, unembarrassed by the noises she made, by the space she occupied. I quietly admired her out of the corner of my eye, smiling to myself. 

sourced from Pinterest, artist unknown.

You see, I hate eating in quiet rooms. Someone once told me the sound of my chewing was disgusting. I questioned every bite I took thereafter, only taking the time to satisfy my hunger when no one was around, or when it was loud enough that I wouldn't be heard. 

This small, unabashed woman inspired me. I broke a cracker in half, my knife lightly clanging against the porcelain dish as I scooped and spread butter. I took a bite, I ignored the bristling of my spine with each crunching chew. I swallowed, took another– a sort of exposure therapy, I suppose. 

As I did this, the woman next to me, a coworker, did the same. Then the woman next to her, another across the table and a few more at the table next to us. They picked up their knives, they broke overpriced, stale-tasting crackers in half and they ate. They ate in the hushed room.

The woman in the plum-colored velvet never noticed the butterfly effect she’d created. No one else seemed to notice that one bite gave at least 8 women the permission they felt they needed to continue eating; to make noise.

This moment left such an impact that I wrote about in my journal later that day, recounting the experience: 

my journal entry from Jan. 9, 2024. <3

Can you see? Can you see that this moment doesn’t actually have much to do with crackers and chewing and knives clanging against porcelain at all? 

People, namely women, are brought up to fear the hunger that lives within them.

The hunger for success. For family and motherhood, or for the lack thereof. For community and love and sex and food. For the things they really want, the things that call to them from the recesses of their dreams.

We can’t want too much of anything, can’t gorge ourselves on ambition– whatever that ambition may be– the way men do. 

This tiny woman wasn’t afraid of what lives within her, even if it’s only in the physical sense and not the metaphorical, too. She wasn’t afraid to take more, to make her hunger known. And for a few minutes, she made me brave, unembarrassed to be seen and heard. 

---

One of my favorite songs, “King” by Florence + the Machine, examines what it is to be a woman, to want for things that seem to be at odds with one another in a way that men are not forced to reckon with. 

We argue in the kitchen,

About whether to have children,

About the world ending,

And the scale of my ambition…

I am no mother,

I am no bride,

I am king. 

Florence speaks of her career, of the sacrifices– I am no mother, I am no bride– she’s had to make to reach the pinnacle she now sits at as “king.” Speaking about this in depth when the song was released, she said:

“As an artist I never actually thought about my gender that much, I just got on with it. I was as good as the men and I just went out there and matched it every time. But now, thinking about being a woman in my 30s and the future, I suddenly feel this tearing of my identity and my desires.” 

She goes on to talk about how this desire to “want it all,” the career and the family, was the first time she felt truly separate from the men she’d idolized and modeled herself after, as they’ve rarely, likely never, been faced with such polarity in relation to their own careers and family lives. You can read a further analysis of the song here. 

typical experiences of womanhood. sourced from Pinterest.

While I’m sure there are plenty of men out there who wish they could spend more time at home with their families than at work, do not be fooled into thinking the weight that sits on the shoulders of women to choose one or the other, to balance both, or have none of the above, is not significantly greater. 

Men do not have to bear and birth children, they are not expected to give care in the same measure as mothers, their careers tend to take priority– their ambitions and dreams held up and propelled by their partner’s sacrifices. 

This– the issues with the patriarchy that negatively impact both women and men– go on and on and on, and I have none of the answers to solve it. I simply have observant eyes, one women’s studies class and a quarter century of life experience under my belt. What do I know, really? 

But while I don’t know much about solving systemic issues, what I do know is this: 

I hope you fight the urge to half and quarter yourself until you turn into a fading memory of how good you once were, a mirage of all the good you could have been. 

I hope that if you want a family, if you want to stay home with your children, that you do. I hope if you decide twenty years down the road that you want to be a librarian or a chef or a pet groomer, that you do that, too. If you never want children, and want to backpack around the world all by yourself, I think you should. If you want a quiet life somewhere in between, I want you to have that.

I hope you never let anyone make you feel guilty about these decisions, but I hope you’re gentle with yourself when you inevitably do; or when you fig-tree-allegory yourself, as we’re all wont to do.

I hope you remember you can change your mind one, two, three– as many times as you wish. And I really hope, more than anything, that you let yourself feel the gnawing hunger that lives within you, that you never apologize for how loudly it rumbles and that you feed it well. 

As Florence sings:

But a woman is a changeling,

Always shifting shape,

Just when you think you have it figured out,

Something new begins to take…

I hope you allow yourself to shift shape over and over and over again. 

vote me president in Nov. & this is what you have to look forward to! sourced from Pinterest.

With lots to ponder and lots of love,

emie g.