It has been 16 years since I graduated from high school and yet it remains the period of my life about which I have the most regrets. I wish I had known more about the college admissions process. If only I could have seen my own beauty instead of constantly looking for it to be reflected back at me from others. Why did I focus so much on my faults instead of my strengths? How did I get away with ditching school so often and still graduating?
I recently got on Facebook - aka the land of people from your past - and searched my high school for people that I would want to be in touch with. For long lost friends with whom it would be great to rekindle friendships. I didn't see that many in the list for my class, so I pulled out my senior yearbook. And then my sophomore. And then my junior high yearbooks. It was then that I realized that what I regret most about my high school years was that I didn't nurture more friendships. Moreover, I got so caught in drama with my (two years older) "boyfriend" that I began losing touch with most of my junior high and high school friends long before I even left high school. Somewhere between entering high school and leaving it, I had managed to lose sight of who I really was as a person.
In ninth grade, I was very involved in school. Student council, scholarship clubs, activities. My ninth grade yearbook is crammed with inside jokes from friends and acquaintances across different social groups. Then, in the middle of my sophomore year, I was in a severe car accident. I broke my TMJ joint in my jaw, broke several teeth, and had to have my mouth wired shut for a few months. I tried to keep a cheerful attitude, but the truth was that it shattered my fragile high school ego. Just when I was beginning to think of myself as pretty, the car accident took that away. Instead of feeling comfortable with a large group of people, I began to feel more moody and self-conscious and stuck to a small group of friends. When I began dating an older friend in my junior year, I let my other relationships slip away. My grades also slipped as I began to ditch school to go hang out with my friends who had already graduated. I was a good student, when present, and so my GPA stayed bouyant enough to not get noticed, but the truth was that I had pretty much lost interest in school by the middle of my junior year.
How many of us wish we knew then what we know now? I feel so grateful for where I am in my life now, but thinking about high school makes me realize how fragile we are during this period in our lives. Faced with life-altering decisions (like drugs, sex, alcohol, college) when we have such a desire to prove our independence and yet such a need for guidance and support. I didn't have that guidance and made so many awful decisions that trampled my spirit and led me down dark paths away from the person I wanted to be.
As I look at those faces in the yearbooks, I wonder what has happened to so many of them. I also think about my own daughter going off to high school in less years than I think I am ready for. I want so desperately for her to understand that the choices she makes will influence the person she will become. To enable her to see her own beauty and value her strengths. To be the guiding hand that I so needed when I was in high school. I am afraid of sharing some of my regrets with her, but my hope is that, by doing so, I can help her high school years be filled with joys instead of regrets.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Fear of Frosting
Until this week, I have never been able to make frosting. My grandma has given me recipes, I have cut recipes out of magazines and I have even tried making it up as I go along. No matter what I tried, the frosting came out tasting like powdered sugar or butter or something that was "off" in some way.
For Christmas this year, my husband gave me a mini-bundt cake pan because I am the kind of person who shrieks with joy over mini-bundt cake pans. My husband's favorite cake is a decadent chocolate bundt that I have made for his birthday the last few years. This cake is so full of chocolately goodness that it needs only a light dusting of powdered sugar to finish it off, which is partially why I have adopted it as my favorite cake recipe (since, as noted, I am horrible at frosting). When I was asked to bring dessert for a book club meeting this week, I was excited to try out this favorite cake in a cute, mini-bundt form.
Unfortunately, shrinking the cake into cute little shapes meant that, instead of being moist and succulent, they turned out drier and less decadent than I had hoped. As I bit into one of them, I realized that while they were pretty good, what they really needed was (oh no!) frosting.
At this point, my first thought was to think of an alternate recipe or pick up something on the way to book club that night. I picked up my recipe binder (yes, I am also the kind of person who has a three-ring binder full of recipes I have clipped out and been given over the years) and looked for something I could make instead. As I flipped through the pages, I came across a page I had clipped out of Sunset magazine (May 2005) for cupcakes and .... frosting. I had cut these out with high hopes at the time but had never really gotten around to trying them. I first thought of making the chocolate frosting but it required a trip to the store and stovetop cooking and cooling which was a little overwhelming for a fear of frosting girl like me. I then saw an orange buttercream frosting recipe for which I happened to have all of the ingredients. Since I had used a bit of Grand Marnier (orange liquer) in the cake mix, I thought this would be a good match.
I pulled out two sticks of unsalted butter and gently softened them in the microwave. I put them in the bottom of my mixer with the first two cups of powdered sugar. I turned it on and a giant puff of powdered sugar blew out of the top and onto my countertop. Not a good start. Undaunted, I continued with the recipe - adding sugar, orange juice, sugar, orange zest, sugar and mixing the concoction together into something I hoped would be edible. I tried a sample and it was a bit off, added a few more things, still off, mixed and mixed and then - WOW! - it tasted like frosting!!!
You can tell be the exclamation points that this was a big moment for me. I had done it. I had conquered my fear of frosting and had made something that tasted pretty darn good. And the thing is, the reason that this turned into a need to write this down, is that it never would have happened if those mini-bundt cakes had turned out the way I had expected. Since then, I have been thinking about this experience and thinking about the many ways it applies to my life.
1. Life doesn't always go the way I expect and, while often this seems daunting, it also provides an opportunity for things to turn out in an alternate, but ultimately better, way. This is the gift of faith.
2. When I am presented with challenges, I sometimes look for an "alternate recipe" - a way to ignore or get around a problem in the hopes that it will go away. This rarely works and it often makes the problems bigger in the end. If I had given up and started a different recipe, my kitchen would have been an even bigger mess to clean up.
3. Recipes didn't start in books. I bet that the first person who made frosting did it because the cake they were making tasted too dry and they had to improvise. I need to be more trusting of my own instincts and strengths instead of fretting over the "right" way to do something. I hate "failing" at things (or being wrong, or losing at games) but these mistakes are how we grow - how our frosting, our lives, our relationships keep getting better.
4. It's all in the perspective. It is so easy to focus on our faults and circumstances instead of our strengths. We second-guess ourselves. We get downtrodden by our dry cakes and don't see the value in the triumph of our frosting - in our ability to transcend our circumstances and become something better. This is the gift of spirituality. Of looking for God and seeing him in the frosting.
I am writing down these insights so that I won't forget them. I am sharing them with you because I hope they help you to get through your own challenges and see your beauty and power through them. Trust me, the frosting is worth it.
For Christmas this year, my husband gave me a mini-bundt cake pan because I am the kind of person who shrieks with joy over mini-bundt cake pans. My husband's favorite cake is a decadent chocolate bundt that I have made for his birthday the last few years. This cake is so full of chocolately goodness that it needs only a light dusting of powdered sugar to finish it off, which is partially why I have adopted it as my favorite cake recipe (since, as noted, I am horrible at frosting). When I was asked to bring dessert for a book club meeting this week, I was excited to try out this favorite cake in a cute, mini-bundt form.
Unfortunately, shrinking the cake into cute little shapes meant that, instead of being moist and succulent, they turned out drier and less decadent than I had hoped. As I bit into one of them, I realized that while they were pretty good, what they really needed was (oh no!) frosting.
At this point, my first thought was to think of an alternate recipe or pick up something on the way to book club that night. I picked up my recipe binder (yes, I am also the kind of person who has a three-ring binder full of recipes I have clipped out and been given over the years) and looked for something I could make instead. As I flipped through the pages, I came across a page I had clipped out of Sunset magazine (May 2005) for cupcakes and .... frosting. I had cut these out with high hopes at the time but had never really gotten around to trying them. I first thought of making the chocolate frosting but it required a trip to the store and stovetop cooking and cooling which was a little overwhelming for a fear of frosting girl like me. I then saw an orange buttercream frosting recipe for which I happened to have all of the ingredients. Since I had used a bit of Grand Marnier (orange liquer) in the cake mix, I thought this would be a good match.
I pulled out two sticks of unsalted butter and gently softened them in the microwave. I put them in the bottom of my mixer with the first two cups of powdered sugar. I turned it on and a giant puff of powdered sugar blew out of the top and onto my countertop. Not a good start. Undaunted, I continued with the recipe - adding sugar, orange juice, sugar, orange zest, sugar and mixing the concoction together into something I hoped would be edible. I tried a sample and it was a bit off, added a few more things, still off, mixed and mixed and then - WOW! - it tasted like frosting!!!
You can tell be the exclamation points that this was a big moment for me. I had done it. I had conquered my fear of frosting and had made something that tasted pretty darn good. And the thing is, the reason that this turned into a need to write this down, is that it never would have happened if those mini-bundt cakes had turned out the way I had expected. Since then, I have been thinking about this experience and thinking about the many ways it applies to my life.
1. Life doesn't always go the way I expect and, while often this seems daunting, it also provides an opportunity for things to turn out in an alternate, but ultimately better, way. This is the gift of faith.
2. When I am presented with challenges, I sometimes look for an "alternate recipe" - a way to ignore or get around a problem in the hopes that it will go away. This rarely works and it often makes the problems bigger in the end. If I had given up and started a different recipe, my kitchen would have been an even bigger mess to clean up.
3. Recipes didn't start in books. I bet that the first person who made frosting did it because the cake they were making tasted too dry and they had to improvise. I need to be more trusting of my own instincts and strengths instead of fretting over the "right" way to do something. I hate "failing" at things (or being wrong, or losing at games) but these mistakes are how we grow - how our frosting, our lives, our relationships keep getting better.
4. It's all in the perspective. It is so easy to focus on our faults and circumstances instead of our strengths. We second-guess ourselves. We get downtrodden by our dry cakes and don't see the value in the triumph of our frosting - in our ability to transcend our circumstances and become something better. This is the gift of spirituality. Of looking for God and seeing him in the frosting.
I am writing down these insights so that I won't forget them. I am sharing them with you because I hope they help you to get through your own challenges and see your beauty and power through them. Trust me, the frosting is worth it.
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