I love to bake. When I’m feeling stressed out, I mix flour, baking soda, eggs, sugar, and almond milk – and turn them into beautiful little cookies. Baking to me is so much more fulfilling than cooking, because most of the time when you cook, you start with your end product. Boiling pasta, just yields cooked pasta. There is art to cooking, but there is something to be said about starting from scratch. I love pulling all of the pieces together and making something new, something different.
It’s hard to start from scratch, because although I have some idea about what the end product will be, there’s no knowing for sure. Maybe, I’ll add a little too much vanilla, or maybe too many chocolate chips (if that is possible). If I leave them in the oven too long, they’ll be crunchy instead of soft. I know everyone has their own preference, but I don’t love crunchy cookies. The edges have to be golden brown, yet the inside still has to remain soft. It’s an art, really.
When I set out to write this, I wasn’t intending to make some sort of cliche analogy about how baking cookies can be a bit like life. Sometimes a girl just has to be “basic.” To be honest, I didn’t even want to write something new this week. My life has been spinning fast like one of those nauseating teacup rides at disney world. I think I’m still starting from scratch, building my life in certain ways, hoping the result will be happiness. Yet I’m constantly adding new ingredients, making new batches of “life” that are slightly different from the last. Sometimes, I just have to let go. I just have to breathe.
The world can feel scary, and when life feels impossible what can I hold on to? I have to tell myself not to look at what I want the end product to be, the unpredictable. Instead, I should count all the building blocks that I have, the “ingredients” of my life. What are those things? They can be as simple as hobbies, or as complicated as family. I need to think about what I do have, instead of what I do not.
I have hobbies, friends, and a volunteer job that I love, among other things. I have laughter, writing, and the smell of warm cookies baking fresh in the oven. Sometimes starting from scratch is hard, it’s slow and painful and a long term process. We are all on this journey together. I’m never going to stop learning new things and throwing new “ingredients” into the “recipe” of life.
No terrible analogies were harmed during the making of this essay.