Chew, But Don’t Swallow

When I was a kid, I had a strange relationship with meat.

No matter how it was prepared, fried golden in hot oil, grilled to a smoky char, or stewed until it fell apart with the gentlest nudge of a fork, something about chewing it made my whole body go stiff. I’d bite and bite and bite until it broke down into something unrecognizable. A soft, tasteless pulp that I’d tuck into the side of my cheek like a secret I didn’t ask to keep. I’d hold it there, sometimes for minutes, sometimes longer. Waiting for the flavor to dissolve, for the texture to change, for the moment to pass. But I never swallowed.

It wasn’t even conscious at first. It was like my body had made a quiet decision without letting me in on it, as if it sensed something I hadn’t yet learned how to name. Something about that kind of consumption, the taking in, the breaking down, the act of letting it become part of me, felt wrong. Unsafe, even. What’s wild is, I wasn’t a picky eater. I’d crunch carrots straight from the bag, bite into lemons like oranges. But meat? Meat felt like a commitment. And I wasn’t ready to make it.

My mother, exhausted from long shifts and even longer expectations, would stare at me from across the table. “Just swallow it,” she’d say, her voice heavy with that particular brand of parental frustration that knows no cure but compliance.

But I couldn’t.

I’d wait until her back was turned, then spit it into a napkin and slide it into the trash. Or worse, I’d sit there long after the kitchen had gone dark, the bite still tucked in my mouth like it might tell me something if I held it long enough. But it was never about later. It was about refusal. It was about a body trying to protect itself in the only way it knew how, by saying no.

And maybe that’s what unsettled the adults around me. The way I could be so quiet in my rebellion. I didn’t throw tantrums. I didn’t scream. I just wouldn’t swallow.

Now, years later, I find myself chewing a piece of meat and realizing it doesn’t faze me. I chew it, swallow it, move on. It’s nothing. And that’s what catches me off guard. There was a time I couldn’t even get it past my teeth. A time when my whole body rose up in protest. And now? I eat it like I was never afraid. Like I was never that girl at the dinner table with a mouth full of no.

But I don’t think that’s forgetting. I think it’s a shift. A kind of quiet becoming. The way the body softens over time, not into submission, but into understanding. Into readiness. These days, my body says yes more often. Yes to nourishment. Yes to discomfort that leads to growth. Yes, to holding things a little longer to see what they become. I’ve learned that swallowing can be a choice, not a surrender.

And it makes me wonder about all the other things I once couldn’t take in. Expectations I never asked for. Gender roles I didn’t fit. Silences I was forced to swallow. Intimacy, I didn’t yet know how to hold. Love that felt like too much, too fast, too heavy. I kept those things in the back of my mouth too, afraid they’d change me. Afraid I’d have no say in how.

But growth, I’m learning, is not about force. It’s about readiness. About choosing when to say yes and when to spit something out. About honoring the body when it says no, and celebrating it when it finally says yes.

I still eat meat. But I chew slower now. I listen while I eat. I pause between bites. I think of the girl I used to be, the one who couldn’t make it past the first chew. I honor her.

She taught me the earliest form of resistance I’ve ever known.

And in a world that demands we take everything in without question, beliefs, roles, expectations, I’m grateful for her. For the way she knew how to refuse. For the way she waited. For the way she taught me that saying no is also a form of love.