True story. Through texting, I received a message from a person I don’t normally talk to but have in the past. They asked if they could drop by that day. Being we don’t see each other often, I said please come over. As I was expecting her to arrive at noon, she never came. The hours went by and I started on my normal routine and assumed she changed her mind or was running late. The day went on and I started making my normal snacks for the week. (PS That’s what I do. I pick a day during the weekend and cook snacks….good trick to have things for the week on hand!) Around 5pm, I received a knock on the door. I have to admit, it was awkward. I didn’t say anything about being five hours late as she didn’t acknowledge the time at all. We exchanged our hellos and she came in.
Some time went by and we were chit chatting in our own world like old times. I realized I didn’t offer her a drink or a snack so I quickly did so.
Amber: “I’m sorry for not offering you a snack, can I get you anything?”
Mary: “Yea. What do you have?”
Amber: “Can I get you some pistachios, cashews, celery, carrots?”
I can’t tell you the look I received after mentioning these items. She thought I was weird and it was written on her face.
Mary: “Uhm, nah…I’m okay.”
I would have offered her real “snacks” however, they were being baked! Please, I was sincerely trying to be a good host! So then I followed up with….
Amber: “Can I get you something to drink? Water? Grape juice? Apple juice?”
Then I busted out with, “sorry I don’t have much. I have fruit juice because of the kids.”
I couldn’t believe I started to feel bad for eating and drinking healthy. Her looks of dismay quickly made me come up with excuses because I felt I wasn’t pleasing her……
She looked around and said, “You have grape juice? That sounds good.”
I felt a huge sigh of relief. Oh thank you for allowing me to offer you something!
So here’s the kicker. I went into the kitchen and she followed still in conversation over the ex’s lover and his mother kind of deal. She was in her own world sharing the story when …. I brought out my juicer. (OH MY!) You would have thought it was the strangest thing in the whole world and there was silence. An uncomfortable silence. I looked around and finally broke the awkwardness and said, “Is there something wrong?”
She shouted at me, “Who are you? What happened to my Amber?!”
Here I went again. Justifying myself. “Well ya know, I just uhm…”
The thing is, people change and believe it or not, it’s okay! I have a hard time defending my want to be healthy to anyone. Does that not sound ridiculous? I got out the ingredients and there was obvious some tension in the room.
Recipe:
- 3/4 cup green grapes
- 1 grapefruit
You know when you offer someone something and they take it because they feel obligated to? It was definitely one of those moments. She took a sip and thank goodness, she liked it. (Shew. Did that make me feel relieved!)
She looked at me and said, “So, tell me how you started making these changes.”
We sat on the sofa and had a long conversation on the effects of juicing, becoming healthy and reaching her own goals. I felt like it was a break through. We snacked on my Cherry Oat Cereal and waited for the crackers to finish. What started off as a rocky road to new things ended up being quite a nice get-together. I hope she learned something from this experience as I did.