Kimberlee K.

For about a decade now, my mom, sister, and I, as well as my two aunts, have had season tickets to the Pantages Theater in Los Angeles. We see seven shows a year, getting together one Tuesday a month to make the drive downtown for whichever musical or play is on rotation.

As part of the tradition, one of my aunts packs candy bags for us to enjoy during the show, which I hide in a secret compartment of my purse, and feel like a hardened criminal every time it’s not found.

Note: if you are a security guard at the Pantages, this is a joke and I follow all rules at all times.

Among other treats, our candy bag is always stocked with Starburst jellybeans (my favorite show candy) and Tootsie Pops (my sister’s favorite) and once the lights dim, we open the Ziploc bag to see what kind of haul we are working with.

Recently, after barreling my way through the jellybeans, I reached back into my purse in search of a little more sugar for the second act of Beetlejuice. But the only thing left in the bag were peanut M&M’s.

And I don’t like peanut M&M’s.

At least, that’s what I’ve always said. It is part of my food identity, right alongside hating mushrooms, cilantro, and peanut butter, and loving raw carrots, tuna noodles, and vanilla cake with vanilla frosting. It is who I am.

I remember being so determined as a teenager to know absolutely everything about myself. To have my personality figured out to its core. Though to be honest, I wasn’t so much concerned with being known as I was being perceived as cool, attractive, or “different.”

As I raced to figure out who I was, I also took notes on what was deemed interesting to like or dislike, and more than once I let my opinion be decided by the general consensus of the group I was with—or the boy I liked.

I often didn’t worry about being honest with myself, especially if it risked my being accepted by others. I leaned into schticks, especially with food, letting them become my entire personality in the hopes that it might shield the fact that I had no idea who I was beyond that.

Throughout high school, I randomly latched onto blueberry muffins, declaring at all times that I was craving one. It made people laugh, it made me interesting. It was the only thing a lot of people “knew” about me.  Now I barely eat them, as they remind me of that version of myself. A version I don’t want to go back to.

It has only been in the last five years or so that I’ve really started to figure myself out. Or perhaps that I’ve finally started to take that journey internally more than externally. I’ve stopped nervously agreeing with sweeping opinions—both big and small—and have instead pursued my own understanding of an argument.

I have embraced the concept of nuance, and realized that I don’t always have to know my answer or opinion about something. I can say, “I don’t know” or “I’ll have to think about that” or “I’ve never tried that.”

Teenage me would be surprised how much peace exists in not knowing, and how much joy exists in my individual truth rather than the perceived or collective “correct” opinion. It’s also so much fun to discover something new about myself, even something as simple as a new food preference.

At a wedding a few years back, we were given a fancy bag of mixed nuts as party favors, all of which I assumed I didn’t like. I had to ask multiple people at my table, “what ARE these?!” in reference to the cashews I began shoveling into my mouth one after the other in delight. Now I have cashews almost every single day.

For some of my opinions—food and otherwise—I’m still trying to figure out where they came from. Are they actually true to me? If not, who was I trying to impress when I made that decision? Or had I let the fear of having the wrong opinion prevent me from pursuing one at all?

I wish it didn’t take me so long to realize that I’m allowed to have my own opinion, and even more, that I’m allowed to change my mind. But I’m glad that life gives you that opportunity every day.

Food is obviously a small example, though I can’t help but wonder if my wandering so far away from myself started with small examples too.

All that to say, as I sat in the darkened auditorium, with my purse in my lap and my hand tucked down into the secret pocket, cupping a snack bag of peanut M&M’s, I tilted my head to the side and asked myself, have I ever tried peanut M&M’s?

I rattled a few into the palm of my hand, then popped them in my mouth.

And I loved them.