The day Mike moved into memory care, I went to the grocery store and tried to figure out how to shop for just myself. I couldn’t quite figure out how, since I hadn’t made a meal for one in almost 40 years—so I gave myself a break and just bought whatever looked appealing. You’re working through a big transition, I thought. It’s going to take some time. You’ll figure it out.

I just passed five-month mark in my transition to living alone. News flash: I still haven’t figured it out.

Once in a while I make a delivery order from a local restaurant, like my favorite Thai place. Sometimes I microwave a frozen dinner. But for the most part, I’ve been grazing my way through these strange months. I start out with a recognizable version of breakfast, but after that my kitchen becomes a giant charcuterie board. I eat a handful of almonds. Then some grapes. A piece of very sharp cheddar. A piece of turkey. Perhaps some blackberries, or some baby carrots.

When my daughter came home to manage my dog during Mike’s most recent hospital stay, she texted to say she was going to order some groceries for delivery. Did I want her to order anything in particular?

I’d been at the hospital with Mike for the better part of two days. I don’t even remember what I have in the refrigerator, I told her, which was true.

It looks like you have yogurt, fruit, and cheese, she replied, after a pause for inspection.

I told her I’d been planning to go to the grocery store when I got the call about Mike needing to go to the ER, which wasn’t precisely true. I’d actually been planning to go to the grocery store for several days before that. But I never got there because, as a general rule, I go to the grocery store only when the charcuterie board is bare. (And then I end up buying more nuts, fruit, and cheese.)

In true eldest daughter fashion, she took charge and ordered a bunch of things she thought I’d enjoy having on hand. These included a pint of very fancy vanilla bean ice cream, one of my most favorite things in the world. (High quality vanilla is criminally underrated, as flavors go.) I didn’t discover the ice cream immediately, but I texted her a thank-you message as soon as I did, followed by a line of crying-for-joy emojis.

I expected many things to change after Mike moved into memory care, but I did not expect feeding myself to become such a struggle. I like to cook; I figured I’d just keep making the same meals, then save what would have been Mike’s portion for the next day’s lunch or dinner. And I do that once in a while—but it’s hard to motivate myself to cook when no one is expecting me to do it.

My children had to be fed, obviously. My son is on the autism spectrum, and he had many food sensitivites when he was younger—I had to get pretty creative to make sure he consumed a balanced diet. Then came Mike’s diagnosis, after which he needed to keep his body strong enough to battle Parkinson’s. All his doctors recommended a Mediterranean diet. That meant cutting back on some of Mike’s farmboy favorites and learning how to prepare fish in many different ways.

But now, dinnertime means a table for one. Nuts, cheese, and sliced turkey are proteins; grapes and blackberries are fruits. I tell myself that at least I’m grazing throughout the food pyramid.

I expected to have trouble with managing home maintenance on my own, and I did at first. But I’ve created a list of trusted helpers in my phone: the friendly plumber, the AC repair company that responds right away, the handyman who seems capable of doing just about anything I ask. When something happens, I know who to call.

I’d also expected to feel strange about living in our house by myself. Treating it like my house has helped a bit—for instance, I did a little redecorating. The bedroom is now more spartan and less cluttered, more unified in its aesthetic than a mishmash of His and Hers.

You make compromises when you live with other people. I don’t often have to do that anymore—which is a little lonely but, I admit, also kind of nice. And maybe it’s also why meal planning has become such a struggle: without the need to negotiate a menu that accommodates the many and lands on a compromise that will please at least a few, I have no idea how to go about it.

So, mostly, I just don’t.

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I met a friend for coffee last week and she told me she was going broke on DoorDash.

“I know how to cook,” she said, “but it feels like so much effort for just one person. And I hate dealing with leftovers. Even as I’m packing them up to put them in the freezer, I’m thinking Why bother? You know it’s all going to end up in the trash.”

I told her about my adventures in Snacklandia. She laughed and nodded.

“If I’m not ordering DoorDash, I’m probably eating bean and cheese nachos out of the microwave,” she admitted.

I don’t know why, but speaking the truth of my life out loud that day lit a fire: I went home from our coffee date and started looking up meal delivery services. I’d tried a few in the past, when juggling dementia care and a full-time career and life in general became too much and I just needed someone to show up at my house with food.

I’d discontinued those I’d tried for various reasons—but it hadn’t even occurred to me to try something like that again. And, now that I only needed to feed one person, I found a service that made it pretty reasonble to provide myself with a proper meal several times a week. Not every day, but more days than not.

I’m thinking of this trial subscription as a jump-start for my self-care mojo, a short-term solution to the larger problem of doing the best I can for myself rather than doing the bare minimum required to stay alive. Who knows, if my body comes to expect regular meals, maybe that will give me the motivation I need to prepare them.

Maybe I’ll figure out that my own needs deserve the same careful attention I’ve always given to everyone else.