Freaking meatloaf. Who’d have thought that would practically send me over the edge? I didn’t know I liked meatloaf that much, or at least was this emotional about it. The other day, I made meatloaf for the first time in a couple of years. I can’t remember the exact LAST time we had it, but since we ate it a few times a month, I’m guessing it was about 2 years and 9 or 10 months ago.

This time, I had to think about it for a while. Why was it so hard? It wasn’t Mike’s favorite food, but he loved it. He worked on perfecting his recipe for a few months and got it just right. 50% ground turkey, 50% ground pork, 100% delicious. The recipe, really just a list of ingredients, was written in my hand writing, not his. That should make it easier. Thankfully, I had written that down. Mike had it committed to memory but I did not so if I hadn’t saved the yellow sticky note, that deliciousness would have been tough to recreate.

I planned the meal perfectly, cooked it just right, but still cried when we sat down to eat. It’s hard to cry and eat, particularly if you’re trying to act like everything is just fine. Maybe I should have made it for lunch, so I could have gotten through that “first” all alone. Or maybe I should never have made meatloaf ever again. Lots of people survive their entire lives without eating it. Maybe I should have made it on a night when friends or my parents were over. Maybe eating Mike’s meatloaf with someone else was just too hard.

Here’s the reality: no matter when I made it, with whom I ate it, or how I did it, that first meatloaf night would have been rough. I can try to avoid all these sad moments or I can keep plowing through them. It was incredibly brave of me, I see now, to suck it up and just do it. I imagine that the next time I make meatloaf, I’ll actually get to enjoy it. Or perhaps it will not be until my sixth or seventh meatloaf-making, but it will happen. I’ll get through the rough, painful moments, and the happy memories will come floating in. The crappy part is that in order to get to the happy memory part, we have to go through the rough, painful part. It is worth it, though. EVERY.SINGLE.TIME.