Resentment Cookies

‘Tis the season for Holiday Parties, Secret Santa, Eggnog, and cookie baking. Now, I love to bake. I like the process, the exactness of it. I suppose you could say that I like the chemistry of it. But this time of year, I hate to bake. I guess you could expand that to say that I hate to bake at Christmas time, for birthdays, for any other holiday, or party, or really any setting where I feel obliged to bake something. I’d much rather bake something on a whim than out of obligation. When I bake out of obligation I end up with resentment cookies.

Now, resentment cookies is a blanket term for any goody baked out of obligation, which usually means that while I’m baking I’m resenting the fact that I feel obliged to bake. It’s a funny state of mind – an ornery, self-indulgent state of mind. I pour all my anger and resentment and temporary loathing for the person who has forced me to bake into my baking and it makes me feel better. Resentment cookies tend to be the best cookies. They tend to be made with decisiveness and assurance. I make daring choices with resentment cookies, such as adding different ingredients just for the hell of it, because when I’m baking resentment cookies, I don’t care about the outcome.

And I think there’s something to be said about that. When we care about something’s outcome, we tend to be cautious; we don’t take risks, we don’t step outside our comfort zones and we end up with bland, boring cookies. There’s a saying: “Life is the journey, not the destination,” and I like that, but I don’t think it goes far enough, because life isn’t just a journey, it’s a process, it’s an experiment, it’s a cookie recipe. And yes, if you follow the recipe to the letter, you’ll wind up with a decent batch of cookies, but if you throw the recipe to the wind and add chile powder to your chocolate chunk cookies you’re creating an experience.

I’m not sure if any of this is making sense. I’ve sort of got the beginnings of a head cold right now and my thoughts are forcing their way through a thick barrier of snot, but what I’m trying to say is that by letting go of life’s recipe, (i.e. go to college, get a degree, get a job, find a husband, buy a house, have kids) I’m experiencing things I never expected to. And sure I still hope to do all the things on that list, I still hope to have cookies at the end, but I don’t want to bake cookies just for the sake of eating cookies, I want to bake cookies for the sake of baking them. I want to live for the process, not the result.

I suppose, in the end, this whole post is trying to be a messy metaphor for life and death. I want to live for life, not for the fear or hope of whatever – if anything – comes next.

Thank you for reading.