me, a blade, and one damn onion

I cut an onion tonight. 

Gonna score that a negative twenty-three on any normal person's scale of awesome. 

For me, however, it was a pretty big fucking deal.

I don't cook.

Don't. COOK.

Friends come over and open my refrigerator and say, You have no food.

I use what should be my pantry for clothes.

But I have all the tools to make it look like I'm domestic.

Pots, pans, wooden spoons, a giant knife.

Knives. Shudder.

You know, slicing vegetables wouldn't be an extreme sport if someone taught me the correct way to hold the damn thing. 

Hand at the start of the handle. Thumb and index finger pinching either side of the back of the blade.

He may have told me all that before the onion debacle. 

I don't remember. 

I'm sure he did, he was all about efficiency, security, a very tidy work space. 

But like most things I don't give two fucks about I probably wasn't listening. 

I didn't care about cooking.

I just wanted to be with him.

So when it came time to chop the onion in half, I barely held it still with my left hand and threw the blade down mightily, holding it all the way back near the base of the handle with my right hand and slice.

Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh.

I'm ok. It's ok. I'm ok. I'm ok.

Kai walked to the bathroom and turned on the faucet and told me to stick my finger under the running water. 

I was so overwhelmingly embarrassed I almost didn't let myself cry.

Needless to say he chopped the onion that night. 

And when he suggested I try again a few days later I replied with a violent NO.

I bet that was the pivotal turning point in our relationship, the moment he realized I am monumentally incapable of the simplest adulting. 

It really was a simple oversight. 

The kind of mishap any cook has had in the kitchen. 

But for some reason something shut down in me. 

My dad nearly cut off one of my fingers with pruning sheers when I was helping with outside chores. 

And here I'd gone and nearly repeated the almost tragedy helping out in the kitchen. 

I belonged in neither circumstance. 

So for some reason this afternoon, all these years later, when I decided I would actually "cook" my dinner and my guests, I realized exactly what I wanted to make--

Red Sauce.

It was time the onion and I met once again. 

And I'm not gonna lie, I was totally fucking nervous.

But you know what, I did it. 

It was an incredibly uneven cut, so it was more a third of an onion and two thirds instead of two halves, but who the hell cares. 

I conquered my damn fear. 

And when I tasted the finished product it was delicious.

As my guest arrived, I went to the stove to boil the water for the pasta and then sat back on the couch.

And he kissed me. 

And you know.

We never actually got around to dinner. 

And I was totally okay with that. 

Hell. 

I think I'll even cook more often. 

I actually.

Kinda.

Liked it.

Who fucking knew?