True Confessions

Isn't that redundant? Isn't a confession by its very meaning, true? Can I digress before I even begin this post? Ahem....the confession I want to make it that I have a deeper love than my love of chocolate. It is not as lofty a love, not loaded with history, not referred to as the "food of the gods," but for me it is a deep and abiding passion. My heart belongs to peanut butter.

I actually cannot have large jars of peanut butter in my home because I will consume them in their entirety in no time at all. Hunger has nothing to do with it. The siren song of the peanut calls to me incessantly and I am unable to resist. If I were to allow peanut butter in my kitchen, in no time I would have to be rolled from my home like the blueberry girl in Willy Wonka.

Today I have come to realize I am not alone in this love - Ghirardelli has released a peanut butter filled square! Now it's no Reese's' Egg, mind you, but it's not bad. It even has tiny chunks of peanut in it! There's a peanut butter Lindor Truffle. Peanut butter is moving on up! (When Godiva releases the Peanut Collection it will have arrived!) (Important note here - the Circus Peanut has NOTHING to do with peanut butter and has been trying to ride the peanut train for years. It is shaped like a peanut in a desperate act of imitation, but do not be fooled! Impostor - bah!)

Here's the Lesson of the Peanut - we're all more alike than we're different. Not always, but most of us like the same things. And most of us want the same things - acceptance, love, safety, freedom, kindness. We just get scared - scared to reveal who we really are and what we really like (we pretend we just want a salad when we really want french fries; we say yes when we really mean no). We hide ourselves in a million tiny ways. It's scary to be vulnerable - to ask for help or love or kindness. So we pretend we don't need those things; we are okay without them; we're strong, independent. It takes the greatest courage to reveal yourself - your true self - to the world. But if you can be brave enough to do it, the right people will see you and love you for who you really are. If they love only the false you, they don't really love YOU at all. And that results in the loneliness and lack of connection so many of us feel.

So grab that jar of Jif in one hand, a spoon in the other and be yourself! Eat what you like, wear what you like, laugh at what you think is funny, celebrate who YOU are. Be brave, my little legume. There are a lot more peanuts out there than you think.