Eat your words

Standing at a crossroads, we stare down at two completely different paths. One is familiar, yet bleak as can be; the other, unknown, yet oddly thrilling at the thought of untold possibility. Our feet cannot stay in this one place for too much longer--straddling the two options--and we must decide. But which is right? Which is meant to be the path that will lead us towards our true purpose in life? Which one will leave our heart singing with the pure joy of being alive and which will rip any pleasure from our chest and make us drop to our knees, gasping for breath?

Because of the recent devastating events of my life--which I will leave to vagueness and metaphor for now--I have been searching deeply for the answer to the above question: which is the right path, given that there are now two--and they head in very opposite directions. While on this search, one person directed me to this blog post: http://mssugarhighness.blogspot.com/2011_02_01_archive.html

Here's the problem: those are my words. My ranting on life. My oh-so-wise advice. Am I so hypocritical as to ignore them? Am I so arrogant as to follow them, even though my heart believes otherwise, just for the sake of keeping face?

The summary of the post is this: when things don't look pretty--whether in baking or in life--just keep going on the path you have already begun. We sometimes give up way too early and don't wait for the storm to pass before abandoning the ship entirely. It's based on an icing recipe I have--strawberry swiss meringue buttercream (de-LISH, by the way)--that requires you to, towards the end, push past it looking like a hideous mess of curdled goop and keep mixing, even though instinct tells you otherwise, until it becomes smooth again.

And, yes, reading back through the post, I totally love this metaphor. Like, love-love-love it (it means more if you say it 3 times). And I believe that it can be applied to a ton of different circumstances. But life--sigh--is not always that simple.

Taking the metaphor one step further, for my current situation, let's add another detail. Say someone, presumably not the baker, adds a foreign ingredient--chili powder, for example--right in the midst of the mixing process, when things are just starting to look good. How on earth would one pick out the tiny flecks of vibrant orange-red, so as to restore order and flavour back to the batch? Wouldn't this be an instance where you would have to (sadly) toss the attempt and start over?

Some people may look at me and judge my actions of disposal as hasty or ill-advised, but I am, after all, just an amateur baker. Perhaps there is a way to save the taste of the treat, but such a miraculous solution remains a mystery to me. And perhaps it always will.

My one, true hope from all of this is that the strength of my character will not diminish because of what happened to me. That I will be able to find meaning and purpose, despite the now empty bowl, and fight the urge to break down on a daily basis. That I will be able to say, with truth and integrity, that this situation is a part of my life at present, but will not direct the entire course of my future. That I will be able to get up off the floor, dust off the flour and begin again.