Things go wrong all the time and humans, the naive little creatures we are, cling on to the hope that one day they might not. We look for a ‘silver lining‘– a single sliver of goodness in a giant sea of plain old bad. This can prove to be exhausting, especially when you have to go looking for the silver lining to reassure yourself that the universe does not, in fact, hate every fibre of your being. 

I’ve had my fair share of ups and downs and I’d be lying to myself if I said that no matter how hard the current against me was, I stood firm in my belief that there would come a rainbow after this storm. Of course, I didn’t. There were extended periods in my life when I’d trudge through dates in the calendar as a gelatinous, sleep-deprived blob wrapped in a blue duvet, trying to make up for her serotonin shortage with garlic breadsticks and instant ramen.

Nothing seemed to be going my way. After attempting to attend a normal high school and failing twice, I’d given up on institutionalised education and finished my degree through an open school, completely isolated throughout the process. The anti-depressants and anxiety medication I was on was making me pack on pounds like crazy, and this didn’t help my already low esteem. Throw in chronic autoimmune disease and I might as well have had ‘God’s Cruel Joke‘ tattooed on my forehead. Everyday I woke up wishing I hadn’t. And then I found my old baking equipment.

You know how people say they remember the exact moment they decided to turn their life around? Like an addict checking themselves into rehab or an estranged father reaching out to his family? Yeah no, that didn’t happen. I’m not going to say “The second my hand touched the silicone spatula I was transported to my grandmother’s kitchen where I’d bake cookies with her after school,” or any other saccharine shit like that.

What really happened was I’d been instructed to clean out the guest room wardrobe for my visiting family, and accidentally stumbled upon a drawer full of cake tins, sprinkles, whisks and piping bags. My mum gave me an ultimatum, saying she’d throw the whole lot away unless I used them. Maybe that made me realise I missed baking, or maybe my sweet tooth made me cave, but I decided I was going to make a triple-layered chocolate mousse cake. 

Anyone who’s tried to make mousse knows that there is very little margin for error. Whisking it too much or too little, letting it boil for a little too long or not long enough or even piping it the wrong way can ruin the light airy texture that it’s supposed to have. The recipe I’d chosen called for 3 kinds of chocolate mousse, each with different consistencies and flavour profiles. And I, a novice baker who hadn’t set foot in the kitchen for over three years, had set myself up for failure.

After 4 gruelling hours in the kitchen, I stared at the monstrosity I’d created with wide eyes. It had an unsightly dip in the middle and the bottom layer was oozing out of the biscuit base because I’d put too much chocolate and not enough heavy cream in there. Predictably, I went on a tirade about how I could never do anything right and I’m a no-good failure and yada-yada, but ultimately the aforementioned sweet tooth made me take a bite of my ghastly creation. And it was…..pretty fucking good.

The bottom layer that I’d put too much chocolate in tasted like chocolate ganache. The middle layer that I’d left in the fridge for too long had frozen into milk chocolate ice cream. The top layer had white chocolate in it that I’d whipped a little too vigorously and melted in my mouth like whipped cream. I’d messed up nearly every step of the recipe, yet every spoonful had me reaching for another one.

No matter how hard you try, you can’t mess up cream and chocolate. Sure, maybe you don’t get the decadent ganache you wanted, but you get a chocolate thick shake which, in my opinion, isn’t a bad trade-off. The forces that appear to be working against you might actually be steering you towards something else, maybe even something better. If I’d stayed in any one of the two schools I’d dropped out of, I wouldn’t have met the amazing people in my support group or any of the friends I made through poetry. If I hadn’t spent two years at home, I would never have bonded with my sister the way I did. If I hadn’t opened up that drawer full of dusty cake tins, I would never have felt so embarrassed by the goopy mess of a cake I made that I put in hours of practice to make sure I only turned out quality creations. 

I wouldn’t trade the experiences that shaped me into the person I am today. I lived through the pain and the sadness and everything else the world threw at me, and I bear my battle scars proudly because the life I have now is worth doing it all over again.

I said there would be no saccharine shit in here. I lied.