Cookies For Crying
Also known as feel-better baking.
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Two weeks ago I made cookies. At the time, making cookies was all I had capacity for. I’m not talking about pandemic baking, where we all found sanity at the bottom of a bag of flour and purpose in each rotten banana. I’m talking about baking because your anxiety kind of won’t allow for anything else—it’s locked you away from every other “normal” thing your brain knows it needs to do. This was baking from a place of panic. It was baking because for some reason, in the moment, baking felt safe.
Spring brought with it a rough few weeks from a mental health standpoint, and I know I’m not the only one these dips happen to. You’ll be pleased to know that cookies help, specifically and maybe exclusively this recipe. (It’s below, not to worry.) An overall sense of defeat has clouded me lately and while I know it will pass, I also want to glean its gifts, because in my experience terrible times are often teaching us about outgrown patterns, or clearing the way for better times ahead, even if “better” is an unfathomable thought in the moment.
On a Friday afternoon I found myself cemented to my couch, truly feeling scared frozen, guilty because what right do I have to feel that way, and angry that this shit was happening to me again. The idea of doing more work for little reward (a running childhood theme, I’m tackling it), or completing practical tasks around the house seemed to do nothing more than fuel the flames of a potent “what’s even the point” rage already boiling inside a troubled brain. Then, almost mindlessly, I stumbled upon…The Cookies.