I inherited my love for chocolate from my mother.
When I was a child, she was positively obsessed. We would be without rice and fish sooner in our house than we would ever be without chocolate. It did not help that my mother worked at my aunt’s restaurant and shop, or that we had a lot of European family members going and back and forth. These Europeans often brought with them some excellent delicacies from countries as far-flung from us as Germany and Switzerland.
On one trip, they brought back so much chocolate that I received an entire bundle for myself. Goodness! I remember sitting on the floor in the living room and eating so much chocolate, it was literally coming out of my nose. I’m so serious. That was the day I learned the practical illustration of the Jamaican proverb:
Too much of one thing—good for nothing.
Fast-forward to 20+ years later and my mother can not stand chocolate. Neither can my father. Naturally, this has been to my benefit for some years, now! If I drop by to see my parents and notice pastry on the island counter with chocolate anywhere in the ingredients, I know it was left there for me.
And like my mother, now that I’m an adult and can decide how healthy or unhealthy I want my diet to be, my home is almost never without chocolate. Yet, these days, I find chocolate has increasing competition from other flavours that just last year I would have cast aside without a second thought, if chocolate was within reach.
In fact, just yesterday I set aside chocolate ice cream to grab the raspberry cheesecake flavour instead—something I would never have done even six months ago. Even worse, sometimes when I consider flavours and see chocolate, I catch myself making a face. And so, I begin to accept that I am following in my mother’s footsteps.
The horror!
It’s a tacit reminder that I’m getting older and that thirty is not too far away. Thankfully, I’m looking forward to my thirties, even if they are to be without the blessing of chocolate.
When I was in my earlier twenties, I remember my older friends hitting this age and having an existentialist crisis about where they were and where they wanted to be. I foresee no such crisis for myself. I am happy with my life, my accomplishments, and the goals still left for pursuing in the coming years.
In truth, the only concern I have about getting older is what on earth convinces women in my family to suddenly fall out of love with chocolate in “old” age? Is there an age limit for chocolate for us? Alas! I fear there is…
—
What about you? What were your first signs that adulthood, middle-age and/or retirement was upon you? Did you also fall out of love with something you had loved all your life—or someone? Tell me all about it in the comments below.
