Half-Baked

Half-Baked

Why we are always a work in progress, and that’s one of the best parts of life.

Photo by Marta Dzedyshko from Pexels

It is December 31, 2019. Many of my friends are posting highlights of their year, and in some cases, the past decade, with sights set on goals, resolutions, and a better “you” in 2020. Wonderful. It’s good to take time to reflect on our lives, revel in our accomplishments, and congratulate ourselves for the positive changes we have implemented over the past 12 months. It’s also good to take a critical look at some of the mistakes we might have made, and how we hope to better handle similar situations in the year ahead.

But for me, I’m resting in a different space. A space, that’s uncomfortable, but I think at this particular moment, is necessary. I have been working with a therapist on some long-standing personal issues surrounding anxiety, control, body image, and a litany of other challenges for about the past 18 months. Today, she asked me how I felt about tapering down from bi-monthly sessions to once a month, and then perhaps stopping sessions altogether.

When she had first proposed we drop from weekly to every other week about a year ago, my heart had dropped into my stomach. I’m not ready! I still need your wisdom and guidance EVERY week, I had thought. But I agreed, and on we went, slowly but surely making incremental progress as the weeks went by.

The thing was, today when she brought this up, it felt right. In fact, I’d been planning to suggest it myself before I even walked into her office. We were on the same wavelength. I have been making steady progress with less and less of her input and prodding. I am in a really solid place right now.

Does that mean I’m fixed (which implies I was/am broken…more thoughts on this in a later post)?

No. Not really.

Does that mean I’ve completely and 100% resolved every last grievance for which I initially sought treatment?

Certainly not.

Does that mean that I’ll never have to set foot in my lovely therapist’s office again?

Likely not (and actually I’d really miss her if I never saw her again— she’s fantastic. Therapy is for everyone!)

I’m half baked. We all are. And the truth is, although we grow, develop, and change in different ways throughout the various stages of our lives, we’re never really quite fully baked; we’ve never really arrived. We’re all on this journey with twists, turns, stop signs, and yield signs, sometimes cruising along efficiently at 70 miles per hour on the highway, and sometimes meandering aimlessly along a bumpy country road, just admiring the view.

With time, I’m growing ever more comfortable and accepting of this fact that we’re never really done. I like comparing this to the idea of being “half-baked,” not in the negative way in which we ascribe this phrase to poorly planned ideas or untrustworthy schemes, but in the very best way that I use to describe by mother’s double fudge brownies: ooey, gooey, with a molten chocolate center kind of half-baked. The most delicious kind.

So yes, keep on keeping on.

Strive.

Set goals.

Work towards a better tomorrow and a more “woke” version of yourself (interpret that for yourself as you will), but don’t get hung up on the constant need to be improving. We’re all moving along on this journey, sometimes in a straight line, sometimes backwards for a time, and sometimes we need to take an extended pit stop. But we’re moving, hopefully with others who can support you and encourage you and gently push you back behind the steering wheel when you need it.

And maybe, if you’re very lucky, you’ll even have a mom who will send you off with a Tupperware full of irresistible, half-baked brownies for the road.

Peace. Love.

Goodbye 2019