Birthdays have always been a big deal to me. I may or may not have been that annoying kid (and adult), whom ever so eagerly starts reminding all my friends and family of my upcoming birthday as early as August 1st. Yes. I said August 1st.
Recently though, I get mixed feelings as my birthday approaches. Maybe it’s a sign of maturity, but undoubtedly it’s because, as with every holiday, I always feel someone missing. Holidays are like that though. They are days which we celebrate with our closest family and friends, yet also a time that we remember those no longer with us here to celebrate.
So, as I’m celebrating 41 revolutions around the sun, I’ve been reflecting more on things I’d love to still accomplish. Is 40 the mid-life crisis age? I had always thought it was 50, but after COVID cancelled our Turks and Caicos celebratory trip last year and I pouted like a child, legit like a child, I found myself yearning to do more in memory of Larissa.
Perhaps it was the extra time at home during quarantine, enabling me to sit and think. However, I also think that sometimes the universe is just sending us signs or ‘nudges’ as I’d like to call them. I recall when I lost Larissa, being encouraged to help with my grieving process by engaging in things I loved prior to my loss.
So, I slowly started baking again. I vividly remember making a lemon meringue pie because my previous attempt at meringue had been a flop, literally a flop; no peaks at all. Anyone familiar with making meringue knows you have to beat the egg whites until peaks form. Done by hand or a hand mixer, it’s a laborious task. Done by a Kitchenaid mixer, it’s a piece of cake (or should I say pie?).
I have a Kitchenaid mixer, but somehow I felt compelled to torture myself and beat those darn egg whites with a whisk. Initially, it was therapeutic. I had a lot of pent up anger, so whipping those eggs into peaks was a release, but then I just got increasingly frustrated and even more angry at those darn egg whites and life as a whole. I poured so much of my emotion into that stupid, sad (yet picture perfect) pie. The picture my husband snapped of me holding that pie with a super forced ‘smile’ is lost somewhere in our archives but forever engrained in my mind. I made a promise to myself and Larissa that if life was ever good agin, I’d bake and spread that joy.
Fast forward to 2021, forty-one (yikes!) years of age and creating cocoa bombs, cookies and various other sweet concessions all in the name of Larissa. People who know me, know my back history on my desire to bake. After all, who doesn’t love a tasty baked good and the smell when walking into a bakery? But for me, and most importantly, it’s the smiles on people’s faces when they taste their pastries. THAT’S joy. I want to spread that joy like confetti. So, I hope Larissa knows that each pastry I make, every cocoa bomb I seal and with every mix of my whisk (or Kitchenaid mixer), I smile. I smile in her memory and knowing that I’m FINALLY at a place where I’m sprinkling that joy as I had envisioned.
