Chocolate Chips

One week to go—what’s changed?

I don’t think I can say for sure that I’ve changed into someone else. I have not beautifully bloomed from a meager caterpillar into a beauuutiful butterfly. That’s dumb. No, a lot of things that I did in Australia are similar to the anxious way I behave back home. The change occurred instead in my recognition that my behavior can be somewhat unpredictable, and that my personality does not fit into one strict category. I move amongst many, trying them out and adjusting according to whatever context I’m in. This idea used to give me anxiety (ironically) because I thought not knowing who I was meant I was lost—that I was untethered, unstable, dysfunctional.

This came to me during one of my favorite activities- baking. Two months ago, if you told me to bake without a recipe, I would’ve screamed in your face. The amounts are given for a reason, for goodness sake!! Someone already spent the time perfecting this recipe so that the amounts worked out perfectly, so just follow the recipe and you’ll get the perfect result! Apologies to all my baking friends.

Then, one day, I realized we had no chocolate chips. And I did not want to go out to get chocolate chips. So, in our puny hotel kitchen, I found myself haphazardly throwing together cocoa powder and sugar in a pot in an attempt to make chocolate chips (which is definitely not how you make chocolate chips, by the way. Don’t do that, it’s a mess.) What the heck was I doing?? Just trying something out. Because if it worked out, that would be so cool!! I could say I just managed to make chocolate chips with my own ingenuity, and I would be so proud of myself. I mean, it went downhill pretty fast. But it didn’t matter. I didn’t care, there were no consequences. I had tried and that was cool.

So yeah, I still make dumb metaphors in everything I think about because it helps me think, and that aspect of me is definitely something that I’ll probably stick with. But I guess I’ll just keep trying other things. Like blogging. Blogging is something else that’s definitely not me. I’m glad I tried because it gave me a chance to reflect, but it felt almost as wrong as my chocolate chip disaster. I’ll post one more when I return home, and then I’ll be quite done with it.

Thanks for reading all my silliness.