Sundays. Emotional Sundays!
Growing up meant Sunday Dinner each week. It was required, not optional. When the person for whom it was required no longer wanted it occur each week, then it was no longer weekly required.
I participated in the ritual of Sunday dinner until I was thrown out of my life like a sack of garbage. Since then, 19 months ago, there has been no more Sunday Dinner.
Even though I have no desire to ever go into that house again, it has still been a difficult adjustment as the rest of my family is still at Sunday Dinner. I know that they are all eating together and I am eating alone.
Over the last 19 months, I have experienced many emotional Sunday’s. Early on I realized that it would help if I made a new Sunday tradition and that I had to replace the ritual with something else.
I decided at first that I would try to eat a proper meal on Sundays. I would cook my own Sunday Dinner. What do mean by proper meal? Well, I do not cook very often. I eat things like humus and carrots most of the time. I guess a proper meal for me means a protein source, vegetables (three of more) and a starch or grain. So I cooked a few Sunday Dinners. I have also eaten out a few times at a local restaurant.
That has changed and for a few months maybe, I have been doing something else. One afternoon following working in the apartment together, my brother and I went to a local bakery cafe to get something to eat. It was a storefront that I had walked by many times as I went for walks but for whatever reason I had not really noticed. For whatever reason it did not invite me in. I really do not know in hindsight what the reason was except I recall thinking it looked like a bakery not a restaurant.
it is now the second time that my brother has initiated me to a place that has subsequently become a haunt. The first was a Thai restaurant on Yonge Street that closed when the owners moved back to China. It was my escape place whenever I needed some place safe to just be, outside my home. After my brother and his girlfriend (now wife) took me there for dinner one time, I just kept going back. I ate the same thing every time, 
Vegetarian Thai Basil (basically Tofu, Broccoli and Thai Bail Sauce). After it closed I ventured into another Thai place. I did not want to go somewhere new. Being in a restaurant was very stressful for me but it was less stressful than being at home during those times. The second Thai place became my new escape place until I moved here.
When my brother took me to the local bakery cafe months back, we had croissant sandwiches and salad. 
It was the first salad I had had since moving here other than at my sister’s house. I had decided that I could not justify buying prewashed greens and I did not have a salad spinner nor a place to store one so I just did not buy salad greens after moving here. That salad at the cafe that day, spinach, tomatoes and cranberries with the nicest vinaigrette I had had in many many years made me want to eat salad again. I started buying salad greens after that and even bought dried cranberries for the first time.
It wasn’t immediately after my brother and my visit that I returned but eventually I did. It has recently become my Sunday ritual.
I like the food or I would not go. The staff is kind to me. I eat the same thing every time. But going there has nothing to do with food. I could make the same lunch at home, for cheaper. Sitting there in that cafe, I am not alone. For a short time, I am not alone. Because of my health, being around healthy people leading normal lives is actually very hard. At the cafe I am not with people but I am near people, something that I now seem to need.
It is not easy being ill and living alone. Being near people at the cafe helps each time. It is a large amount of money to me now but I spend $14.97 not to spend Sundays alone.
Elina Grace Edwin
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