Black Forest Cake
Another year begins and I feel like I should write something of real importance or at least something noteworthy but what is there to say?
I’m one person living one life. A very unimportant life in the grand scheme of things. A life some would approve of and others would despise.
Anything I say would be applauded by some and shouted down by others because we are all different. Too different for any one person to ever be able to win the approval of all the others.
I have begun playing yet another online game. I have called myself Solo in there because I am solo in so many ways.
I came into this world alone. My mother was there but she knew the experience from her perspective not mine and the same has been true ever since. Nobody can ever really know the world as I know it. No matter how many people are with me, in some ways, I am always alone.
Some day I will leave this world and, when I do, I will be alone then too. Nobody can ever join me on that final journey. Nobody will ever know how it felt for me.
We can guess how other people feel. The guesses can be made more accurate by knowing the other person well or by having gone through the same experience but, at the end of the day, we are still just guessing.
The only person who is really 100 percent with me at all times is me and I am the only one who can ever really know me. Even then I can sometimes surprise myself.
Today is day three of my sixth week on this diet and I finally caved in and bought a set of scales. I have lost 7 kilos and I was so disappointed. The other night I watched The Biggest Loser and felt my 7 kilos was pathetic compared to the huge amounts those people lost each week.
Then I remembered Christmas and all the food I ate that was not part of my diet. I particularly remembered the home made Black Forest cake a workmate brought to work.
It was loaded with cream and chocolate slivers and it was lop-sided so nobody else touched it. It looked amateurish and fattening but I am a curious sort of person so I cut it open to see what it was. As soon as I saw it was a Black Forest cake I had to try a piece even though it didn’t look quite right.
It was heaven on a plate! I have never tasted a Black Forest cake so light, so delicious, so exquisite and I have eaten at places with five star ratings! I went back for seconds!
Two days later I was back at work and the sorry looking masterpiece had been carelessly covered in foil and put in the fridge. It did not look as if anyone else had cared to try it and I knew they would not eat it now. Not when it was two days old.
I tried another piece and, even slightly stale, it was still the best I have ever eaten. When I left work I took it with me and ate it all.
As I stood on the scales today, feeling disappointment flood through me because of the small weight loss, I remembered that cake.
“No regrets,” I thought to myself and laughed, “that cake was worth it! A cake like that doesn’t come along every day and I would have forever regretted NOT eating it!”
Sometimes you have to be true to yourself but, to do that, you have to know yourself. I know me and I really LOVE Black Forest cake. I really would regret NOT pigging out on such an exquisite version due to the fact I can always lose more weight. Who knows if I will ever get another shot at eating a cake like that again?
The weight is coming off. It will continue to come off and I knew as I ate the cake it would cost me. I was prepared to pay the price then and today I paid it.
No regrets!
Some day I will be taking my final breath and, as I take it, I want to be able to say that same thing.
No regrets!
I want to be able to look back over my life and know I did the best I could to be the best I could. A good life, to me, is one that does as little harm to others as possible and, God willing, does as much good to others as possible. I want to be able to say, at the end, I made the world a better place to be. It’s not hard to do that but, if I can’t do that, I want to be able to say I didn’t make it any worse!
I live my life in the constant company of myself and, when I leave this world, I will be going alone. I want to like who I am on the journey and approve of who I have been at the end.
Before I went on the anti-depressants I would have been regretting that cake today. I would have been focusing on how it proves I have no self-control. I would have been beating myself up and all the pleasure that cake gave me would have been lost in guilt and self-loathing both at the time of eating and now.
Not any more. I did a good thing for me and for someone else by eating that cake! I treated myself to something I love and I made the cook feel her (or his) efforts were appreciated!
These days I feel I am a bit like that cake. I don’t look like much but under the amateurish covering I am exquisite. I’m a masterpiece created by the master chef – God! I am also light and delicious!
And I’m getting lighter every day!
(Walks away laughing at her own joke, wishing everyone could know how good it feels to genuinely like yourself, and thanking God with all her heart for bringing her to a place of peace and contentment.)
