For the Love of Savoring Sandwiches

The first sandwich I remember loving was one I didn’t choose. Somewhere near the water in Michigan, my parents doled out a couple sandwiches to split along with a few bags of chips to preteen-me and my three younger siblings. We’d be sharing—no order-taking, no arguing.

We’d never been a summer vacation type of group, but we’d driven to Michigan to visit family so extended that some of us had never met, and the last-minute trip doubled as an escape hatch from Kentucky’s humidity. The salt of the pretzel bread made it feel like we were by an ocean, which I kept reminding myself was actually a lake. I liked not having to pick out of all the sandwiches. I liked that I was able eat whatever I ended up with, regardless of the combination I got—and managed to enjoy it. 

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That year was also one of the first that I began experiencing symptoms of obsessive compulsive disorder. I didn’t know, at the time, what the unwanted thoughts and feelings that would seep into my days were. Only that they upset me. I didn’t understand why I mentally reviewed events, conversations, or my behavior until I felt separated from who I was or what I liked— too afraid to enjoy it lest it be overtaken with fear, too. I felt, even then, what a relief it was to just like something.

Even as a kid, I was aware of how these thoughts and fears would interrupt me. How much time they seemed to suck up. On that trip, I’d be tearing through the sand with my siblings one moment only to freeze abruptly, and count over and over in my head to make sure no one had gone missing the next. So, the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed something as simple as sandwiches—without analyzing it first, without worrying that enjoying it would surely cause something bad and unrelated to happen—delighted me. A sandwich felt, to me, how summer often feels: something you want to hold on to forever.

Read More: Learning to Want Again

Every summer since, I’ve craved the crispness of my favorite veggie sandwich (loaded with avocado, cucumber, tomato, peppers, and a hearty slice of provolone thrown in) when it’s just too hot to cook, or pulling a sandwich out of a backpack after a bike ride or a hike. Because sandwiches, in all their messy, toppings-spilling-out-of-bread glory, are my reminder to enjoy, to breathe—to savor.

To be clear, liking or savoring something doesn’t help this debilitating disorder—only evidence-based treatment does that. So often, knowing what I like, and trusting that, feels like a sweaty fight, forcing my mind to make room for my preferences, my ideas, and my yearning amid fear. This runs a spectrum from the small to the catastrophic. Imagine if everything you’d ever enjoyed, or held dear, suddenly felt distressing. Or convincing you that you’ve poisoned the meal you cooked and were about to serve it to everyone you invited over for dinner.

It feels like a small miracle that I’ve been able to hang onto liking something as simple as sandwiches this long. And it reminds me that I can have other things I savor in my life, too. Remember Michigan, by the water? I think to myself. It’s okay to savor. You still can.

Sandwiches have also become touch points for highs and lows: a grilled chicken sandwich piled with tomato and greens on crusty, chewy bread with salt and vinegar chips, ordered in celebration of a milestone work day; a turkey sandwich with spicy cranberry chipotle chutney packaged in plastic wrap the way it might in a kid’s lunch box when I stood in a new city and realized I’d taken a life-changing chance just by being there; a tuna sandwich from a local health food store I planned to eat after my first colonoscopy, that I apparently babbled extensively to nurses about; ordering a sandwich with tomato and pesto mayo that made the focaccia soggy (in a good way) for delivery in the thick of beginning treatment, when I felt so locked in my mind by obsessional doubt so overpowering that I couldn’t turn the doorknob of my home and leave to get it myself.

Every summer, as the sun sets earlier and earlier, we hold tight to our own forms of savoring, wishing it could all last a little longer. After all, enjoying a sandwich on a beach is an enduring pastime for a reason. There’s understated bliss—however fleeting, however small—in reminders of what you actually like. There’s also power.

In my case, that includes a running joke with friends that the hill I’ll die on is that the sandwich is actually the ideal little treat, even though, yes, it is technically a meal. Sure, just how it comes; yep, just the sandwich; oh, whatever bread you have is fine: each an order, each a blessed release of control.

Sometimes, sitting at my desk with summer’s thick bathwater air in the open window, I think about going back to that sandwich spot in Michigan. I think of the summer of that year, when my younger self was just beginning to question why her mind was the way it was, why these thoughts she didn’t want took up so much room, and whether she’d know who she was or what she’d like. 

I think she’d be thrilled to know I’m still here—still savoring sandwiches.

For resources and information on obsessive compulsive disorder, please visit the International OCD Foundation.