Stuck in the Kitchen
- Tiffany Melissa
- Oct 5, 2018
- 4 min read
Lately, I've been finding myself stuck in the kitchen and for a good reason.
I LOVE COOKING AND BAKING!
Seriously, I used to find cooking so annoying and full of work. Now that's change for the better. I realized that I hated being in the kitchen because I was cooking food that I hated to cook or baking boring cupcakes from the box. There was no freedom or creativity in that. Every time it was 3 PM, I started to stress out about dinners because I wasn't cooking just for me anymore.. I was cooking for two other people. I found that they ate what I made but didn't enjoy it. It didn't Spark Joy. Sure, it fulfilled their need of hunger but it didn't bring them joy because I was not joying the labor I put into it.
In the past weeks, I've made some self changing discoveries and had to really re-discover who I was as a person. When I sat down alone and was feeling lost, I was trying to figure out what I liked, what made me happy and where did I want to see myself. I honesty could not answer those questions. It should be easy right? Some can come up with 10 different things that they liked to do on a daily basis, weekly and or monthly-- I couldn't come up with ONE thing. I couldn't.
I started to write down all these things I did on a daily basis. I went through every individual event, task or chore and asked myself, "does this make me happy? does this bring joy to my life? Why do I even do these things?" and a lot of the time, the answer was "no it does not" However, many of these tasks are a requirement of daily life and survival. For example, cooking, laundry, and cleaning/de-cluttering. I told myself that I couldn't simply just stop doing these things because we need them and we aren't rich to hire workers to do these things for us, so we must do them.
But no one said that I couldn't make it fun.
I started with cleaning and de-cluttering. I had to. It was gross, you don't want to know. You probably guessed it though.
Anyways, we pulled everything out of everything, and went through a de-cluttering phase. I took out clothes that i wore 10 years ago and put it in the donation pile, I had taken all of my son's toys that he's too old for and put it in the donation pile, I pulled paper and photos off my desks and threw them into the recycle pile and lastly, we broomed, mopped and wiped everything down. It was probably the most cleaning I've done in a while but the most fun. I actually had fun. Before, I used to be grumpy, sad and annoyed that I was doing this, why? Well, even though we needed to do it, I felt forced. I had too much emotional attachment TO EVERYTHING. I mean EVERY THING. This time around though, I was in the mood. In the mood to clean and get rid of everything that didn't serve a purpose. I had no feelings and memories that surround everything I was donating.
It was so amazing. So releasing!
Then I discovered my love for cooking. I started cooking things I liked to eat... what I found to be 'yummy yummy in my tummy' foods and made them. Then I started exploring how to make some of my cultural foods that I am obsessed with. I had remembered watching my mom make congee once in her home and I tried from memory how to make it. I didn't do a bad job. The first batch was the perfect consistency. I got cocky the second batch and had too much garlic and was too salty. Then all the batches were off one after another, it didn't taste the same like the first time but I never gave up and I had fun doing it each time. Because I was having fun, I didn't take any criticism personally and made adjustments each time. Eventually, my congee became better and better. I then gained the confidence to explore other types of foods and baking. And this is where my love for cooking and baking took off. I look forward every day on what I am going to make next.
I used to be a person that needed to please everyone. A person that allowed everyone to tell me what to do next. I was a puppet and when was offered to make my own decision, I melted away and shut down.
Now, I feel that it is okay for me to say 'no, I don't want to do that today' or 'I'm not interested'. It is still a work in progress to find who I am and what I like to do.... but it's slowly molding who I want to be and I am loving it.
I just pray that I never give up on me, again.
This is more a rant post than a life lesson. Ha.