Dear World.

Baking is not always as fun and easy going as bakers make it seem.

Baking is just as unstable as the emotionally unstable people who bake.

It’s been a hot minute since I’ve opted to bake some goodies. Up until last weekend that is. I baked scrumptious berry muffins that had me craving more once they were gone.

It was a Sunday. I embarked on the typical journey of preparing ingredients and recipe alterations to achieve the product I envisioned – just another routine of doing what I love.

I was emotional – probably because my period was approaching and I was irritable.

About two minutes into the prep process, I dropped the eggs. I still replay the instance where the eggs slipped from my hand and made their way to the kitchen floor. In my head, I tried to stop the impact but I really just stood there in shock and disappointment as I watched it unfold. Once the eggs broke and splattered across the floor, all the expletives imaginable left my mouth and dusted the air like flour on a puff pastry.

I will not leave them here but it was essentially a:

How in the name of Chef Gordon Ramsay and Remy from Ratatouille could you let this happen?!

No lies, a big part of me died. I wailed a bit.

I know my way around the kitchen (especially for baking) so I couldn’t understand how or why the eggs fell! I took it hard. Yes, the experience was quite dramatic – perhaps unnecessarily so.

Priorities

I weighed my priorities in that moment and my goal of baking some bomb muffins was still the order of the day. So I paused the baking process and cleaned up the mess.

Then, I got some more eggs. That’s right. I had more eggs.

The broken eggs had no bearing on the quality of baked goods and all was still well with the world. I could’ve easily wallowed in the agony I felt and discarded the entire plan. But, I chose to continue.

My maternal unit, after the muffins were done, said she would have baked if I had given up but she wanted me to see the process through. She knew I would do it. She knew I could.

Listen, this might be seen as a bit simplistic or even overly dramatic to explain life lessons but lessons are sometimes worthy of all the ‘extra-ness’ they receive.

Real Life

Funny enough – when all this happened, I was going through some real life ‘I dropped my metaphorical eggs’ situations and I was not handling them very well. It felt like God/ The Universe/ Mother Earth / Buddah, Yahweh, Jahweh was trying to connect with me on a real level that I would quickly understand.

I made a mistake in an undisclosed aspect of my life and I felt like the world was ending. Despite all forms of comfort and reassurance, no one could tell me that the world wasn’t ending after I ‘dropped my eggs’.

I’ll tell you bout those eggs in another blog post.

The Lesson?

• Do not allow a mishap to hamper your journey to the final product. The world will not end, you will not die and your goal will still be an encapsulation of all you’ve dreamed about and prepared for.

• Eggs fall and break all the time. You decide if you’re gonna leave the mess or if you’re gonna clean it up and try again.

• If you don’t bake the cake someone else will. Just know that the reward and victory will not be yours.

Have you ever dropped your eggs? How did you handle it or how are you handling it? What lessons did you take from the experience?

With love and flour dust on my nose,

The Night Baker.