Lessons From a Jalapeño

Today was a Jalapeno-on-my-face kind of day

 

Adulting 101: do not touch your face after de-seeding a jalapeno; you must wash your hands thoroughly first. How did I miss this important, somewhat common-sense lesson?

 

Today was the perfect day to make a Pinterest-worthy, “healthy” turkey taco soup. I mean, it’s the end of October, it’s raining, and by Mississippi standards, this 63-degree weather calls for Pumpkin Spice Lattes, ankle boots and none other than…. taco soup.

 

Let me be clear: my approach to life is kind of a throw in everything you got and see what happens approach. Needless to say, my cooking style is the same.

 

So, armed with mom’s credit card (yes, I am a thirty year old adult woman living at my parent’s house voluntarily), I headed to the grocery store and loaded my cart with “healthy” ingredients, everything ready-to-go, of course: “washed and ready” sweet potatoes, onion and kale mix; a jar of salsa; chopped, riced cauliflower; ground turkey; etc., etc. (I don’t want to give away this clearly 5-star worthy recipe) and one large jalapeno pepper. My half-Indian heritage makes me feel inclined to add a bit of spice to all my meals, and I’ve learned the hard-way to not blindly throw in ground cayenne pepper from a spice jar, so I figured I’d ration out a single jalapeno pepper and be totally fine.

 

Even better, I figured if I de-seeded the thing, I’d avoid the spice completely, but still get to brag that my soup came laden with hot peppers.

 

So, once I got home and unloaded the groceries, I started to cook. Sidebar: I always add unnecessary time to the task; intending to make the trip quick, I load 5 bags per arm, then reach a 5-bag heavy arm up to close my trunk, and inevitably a bag breaks and something spills and lo and behold, I’ve just added an extra five minutes to my unloading mission when it would have been so much easier and less time-consuming to just make two trips to unload my groceries instead of one. Does anyone else do this? But what can I say, you live and learn. Or in my case, just repeat the same thing over and over, expecting different results. I think some wise guy once called that “insanity.”

 

So anyway, I de-seeded the damn jalapeno, thinking I had it beat, and then went about my way. Somehow I missed the memo that you should wash your hands after handling jalapeno peppers or seeds or really any kind of hot pepper, and so I went to go scratch my face (or more likely, wipe off the chocolate I’d been scarfing down mid-soup making from our Halloween drawer).  Five seconds later, my face was ON FIRE.

 

My first instinct was to rub the place on my face that felt on fire, with my jalapeno-infested fingers. Then I stuck my face under the kitchen faucet, cleaning it with the handy dish soap and sponge nearby (oh yes, the sponge that I’d just used to clean off the same cutting board used to chop my jalapenos).

In the midst of all this, I received some advice: use milk and/or lime juice to take out the pepper sting. Well I’m never one to turn down a DIY spa day, and limes just happened to be one of my ingredients handy nearby, so I made myself a lime and milk face mask and attached it to my face with a single sheet of Bounty’s finest paper towel.

 

Eventually the sting wore out, and about five pimples later I sat down to a bowl of my hodgepodge taco soup.

 

But it got me thinking: my whole morning had been like that, stuck in that frazzled energy. When it rains, it pours, right? My dogs were little demons, I sank my foot in mud, spilled a cup of coffee in my car, lost my keys, I mean the list goes on and on. If I don’t take a moment to wash off the little things in life, they build and build until they take over.

 

So, in that moment, holding a milk and lime infused paper towel to my face while I ate my soup, I just decided to shift my energy. I just decided, hey, why don’t I do something about this?

 

I made a commitment that I didn’t want to feel that way. I didn’t want to feel worried or anxious or angry at the world. I didn’t want to lash out at myself or my mother for never teaching me not to wash my hands after de-seeding a jalapeno (which, to be fair, I’m sure she said a hundred times over and I just never listened). I didn’t want to stay stuck in that low energy that kept me feeling sorry for myself.

And y’all are about to ask me what’s in my fruit loops but I swear, after I just surrendered that to the universe and let go, when I said, please help me give all this crap over to you (because, yes, that’s how I talk to my higher power), I immediately felt a shift.

 

Something felt lighter inside when I let go of resisting what was. When I was playing fetch with our new puppy, he dropped the ball easier. He listened to me better. He did what he was supposed to do 5 times out of 10 instead of 1 time out of 10. I cleaned the dishes without scrubbing furiously because the soup debris wouldn’t come off. I took a walk in the rain and saw a deer run out and just like a little kid I laughed out loud (even though I see about five deer on average, a day). And yeah, maybe it was me, my energy, maybe just shifting my perspective. Maybe there’s nothing “magical” about it, but maybe, just maybe, it’s the natural way of things. Maybe surrendering doesn’t have to be as hard as we make it.

 

We just get bogged down by all the jalapenos in life that we forget to sit in the madness and listen. Instead of washing our hands of the problem, we let it grow by rubbing it all over ourselves. If instead we choose to surrender and listen, we get to receive, and whether we receive in goosebumps or pay stumps, we receive something when we let go of ourselves and get in line with something greater. At least, that’s what I’m finding out. And it’s a hell of a lot better to live that way, then letting one damn jalapeño ruin my day.