I'm just going to bake banana bread

I find myself at times far too contemplative.  I've been like this as long as I can remember, and I have a frightening memory.  And while I can remember the good and the bad, like many people, I find my thoughts swarming around the bad memories, more often than the warm ones.  As many of you know, this is rarely productive.  This is rarely a happy moment of reflection.  It's certainly not going to change the past unless you have a time machine.  And until I complete my time machine, I'm going to find something that is productive.


I'm going to bake banana bread.


It's a remedy I've developed over the years as I mull over the strident thoughts, the decisions, the mistakes, the contempt, the criticism, my own personality quirks, that irksome feeling of not fitting in, the truly awful history, former bad habits, all of this going about my head as I mix all the ingredients together.  As I mash the bananas.  As I scoop out the brown sugar and flour.  As I break the eggs ever so carefully.  As I listen to the mixer roar with butter.


It doesn't even have to be banana bread.  But I chose it today.




Maybe someday I will be able to exorcise these demons inside of me.  Maybe someday I'll be able to release the tension.  Someday, maybe, just maybe, I can find a way to come to peace with all the negative things that have been said to me over the years.  Maybe I'll forget again that one relative in particular who has never once said anything positive to me, no matter how much I have helped his family, a fact I had been in denial over for years.   Maybe I will come to terms with how I've allowed relationships to pan out.  Maybe I'll even truly forgive. Maybe I'll finally write about all of it, passive-aggressively or otherwise, something I won't allow myself to do, something I'm too scared to exploit, mostly because of what it will ultimately do to me.  Maybe I'll stop using distractions to ease the pain.



But until then, I'll just continue to bake banana bread.  Or whatever other somethings I choose to bake. Or make.  Or do.  It appears to have worked thus far.