I want to be a macaron
I can’t believe it’s been so long since I’ve tried to bake something. The last things I attempted were macarons, and that was almost two months ago!
The reason why I’ve been a ghost is because my mental health hasn’t been wonderful.
It’s interesting. You can be so aware of how good you have it, but still have phases when you’re feeling so down that you can’t find the energy to do the stuff that normally excites you, eg. learning to cook, going to the gym, listening to boy bands.
The list of things I’m grateful for is never ending—highlights include amazing friends, good family, born in Canada, physically healthy, my sweet doggy dog, cute-ass car, really soft forearms. I could go on for days.
My mental health counsellors and some of the people I thank Jesus for every day.
Same girls, but I thought I looked cuter in this pic, so I included it too.
And I really try to always keep my blessings at top of mind.
I write in a grateful journal almost every day. Both to and from work, I listen to podcasts that focus largely on gratitude. I set midday phone alarms labeled with the names of people who, despite having it much harder than I do, are so positive and kind—regular reminders that in my privileged life, I better be a good person too.
But despite my efforts, these past couple months were not my best.
I attribute it partially to winter blues, partially to lack of physical activity, partially to my usual overthinking, and most of all, I attribute that shit state to the expectations I have of myself and the life I’ve planned to live.
Is this getting too deep for a blog about learning to cook? OK, well then let’s switch gears, back to the macarons.
Surprisingly, these required little ingredients.
Everyone says that macarons are some of the hardest things to make. Makes sense since they’re so pretty, delicious, and expensive.
But, as someone who expects that everything should and will go perfectly—often to the point that I set myself up for disappointment because it’s impossible to live a smooth and unblemished life—I decided to go for it.
I found a recipe on Tasty, I hit up Bulk Barn to get the ingredients and some piping tools, then I hit the kitchen.
I combined and sifted the dry ingredients as per the instructions. Then I blended in the egg whites and folded everything together, trying hard to make it look like the video on Tasty.
The mixture tasted really good, so it seemed like I was on the right track.
I put the ingredients in the piping bag, then I came across a problem: I couldn’t squeeze the shit out.
Turns out, the piping tip I bought was too small. And with the ingredients being so thick, I ended up having to scoop the mixture out, and just plopping ugly blobs onto the tray, rather than squeezing out perfect circle cookies like I had imagined.
Stupid ass too small piping tools.
These ain’t cute.
At this point I was super annoyed. I spent a decent amount of money on the tools and ingredients, and I just put in an hour laying everything out, mixing it up, and trying to make these stupid little French desserts.
Though I was very annoyed and convinced that these macarons would end up looking and tasting like dirt, I proceeded with the instructions.
After baking them, I waited for a few hours for them to cool, then I sandwiched two cookies together with icing in the middle for the final product.
They were ugly af.
But… they were delicious af too!
Dare I say it, these were some of the most delicious macaron-fugly-dessert-things I’ve ever had.
This whole macaron process was not dissimilar to what has been my life so far—and what I hope it will become.
With everything I’ve done—especially when it comes to school, work, and boys—I’ve set the bar unrealistically high. (Kind of like when I chose to make macarons, even though I struggle to make pre-made Pillsbury cookies.)
During my decades in school, I largely met those expectations, all the while, nothing all that bad ever really happened to me. So, I naively continued on, assuming everything else would be that easy.
High school.
Undergrad from McMaster.
At Western holding my master’s degree, thinking that the hard part was behind me. lol.
Feeding into that mindset is my refusal to consume anything other than rom coms and boy bands. I’ve unknowingly pruned myself to believe that I’d be like all the protagonists I watch: everything would work out perfectly, I’d find a killer job that I’d be so passionate about, boys would tell me I’m beautiful through song, and there wouldn’t be a star in heaven that my Troy Bolton-esque husband and I couldn’t reach.
While it may seem obvious, I’m really starting to learn that life isn’t that straight forward.
Right now, I’m at the point in the macaron process when I found out I bought the wrong size piping bags. Currently, I am scooping the ingredients out onto the tray, realizing things aren’t going to go as smoothly as planned.
In other words, I’m finally seeing firsthand that unexpected shit does, has, and will continue to throw things off course every now and then. Plus, the bars I’ve set for work and relationships have proven to be much harder to reach than the ones I set for school.
I’ve never considered myself to be a perfectionist; I don’t care if my car’s a bit dirty, I often look like a scrub, and my penmanship is terrible.
But in trying to understand why I’ve been feeling so low, I’ve realized that I really am a perfectionist, but just in a different sense: I’ve been wanting and expecting everything to work out like a sweet little Disney movie, but that’s just not how life is.
With my privileged and relatively easy start at life, it’s been a struggle to figure out how to break out of this dissatisfaction mindset and accept the things I can’t change.
I find all of this really tricky.
One reason being, I know that my problems are so small compared to other people in the world, so I feel like such a spoiled brat for feeling sad in the first place and for wanting more out of life.
But, when it comes down to it, I just know I wouldn’t be living true to myself if I were to stop having big dreams. If I were to aim for less and choose practicality and ease, I think that would ultimately be harder for me because that’s just not who I am.
So, what’s a bitch supposed to do?
I’ve established that I’ll always have big goals, and I know that it’s important that I put in work to achieve them. But, until those goals come to fruition, I need to find a way to enjoy the journey, or else I risk spending years of my life just being miserable.
All the people whom I’ve talked to and all the things that I’ve listened to have said that gratitude is the answer.
As I mentioned before, I practice gratitude all the time. But, when I wake up and don’t want to go to work, being grateful that I have good friends and family isn’t going to make me want to go.
Rather than distracting from the bad by focusing on unrelated good, what I need to do is learn to accept, and when possible, appreciate the bad.
Sometimes shit can be a good thing. Just depends on how you look at it.
For example:
When I don’t want to get out of bed to get ready for work: I can accept that I need to go and make money. And then I can be grateful that I woke up and am alive, and that I’m going to a place that is filled with really good people.
When I get left for another woman: I can acknowledge that it’s a shitty situation, so it’s fair to be upset. But then I can be grateful that I said goodbye to the wrong guy and that the experience has made me more understanding and supportive of my friends for when they go through relationship shit.
When I get ghosted for the tenth time in a row: I can accept that I live in a bleepin’ cemetery and acknowledge that it sucks. And while it may sound ridiculous, I can be grateful that I’m kind of a record holder. Also, when those spooky boys try to come back and haunt me, because let me tell you, they always do, I can screenshot their messages, send them to my girlfriend group chat, and be grateful that we can all have a good laugh at that stupid ghost’s expense.
Changing my mindset will take time. I don’t know about y’all, but for me, when I don’t pay attention, my mind often trails to the negative without me even realizing. While accepting the bad and focusing on the good takes a conscious effort.
But, this is one of the things that I’ll have to work at in order to enjoy my life to the fullest.
I could also try to mixing in some other movie and music genres (not a joke), to remind myself that, unlike rom coms and boy bands, life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. But that’s how it’s supposed to be, and that’s what makes it meaningful and great.
Man. You probably didn’t expect this huge-ass blog post when you set out to read about making desserts.
But, I saw the parallels in learning to make my macarons and in learning to navigate through this life, so I decided to run with it.
Moving forward, I’ve established that my life will never be perfect like the macarons I pictured myself making, and I’m finally starting to be OK with that.
All I hope is that I enjoy the journey, and that in the end, while my whole life will have been filled with mishaps and mistakes, hopefully, it will be great too. Just like the macarons I made!
What I’ve learned/some realizations:
I’m a perfectionist.
Life is going to be way harder than school ever was.
I need to make a conscious effort to think positive thoughts and to get excited about both the present and the future.
I should slow down on the rom coms and boy bands.
Life is like a macaron. But not like the perfect, smooth, cute ones you see at rich people’s baby showers. More like the ugly yet delicious ones that you see on this blog.