Come Fly With Me

Are you doing what you love?

Are you doing what you’re MEANT to do?

Do you even know what you WANT to do?

I do.

I want to be a chef.

It’s interesting to me that I realized this so late in my life. Truth is, even if I had this aspiration back when I was 18, my parents would have freaked out. Being a chef was hardly the glamorous undertaking that it is right now. I envy the people of this generation who have the surety to know that it’s the path they want to travel. They have so many more means to go about it than I did back in the day.

Related: I hate myself for saying “back in the day “.

I spent about two years dabbling in cakes. Wedding cakes, basic cakes, even fancy shaped ones. After a while I got bored, and realized that it was not going to be challenging enough for me to bake and decorate birthday cakes for little kids.

So next I moved on to chocolate. I had heard about the Callebaut Academy here and there (for those who don’t know, Callebaut is one of the premier brands of couverture chocolate on the market), but the classes were expensive- $900-1,500 for each three-day class. It seemed excessive to me and I never honestly thought that Hubby would go for it. In addition to the cost, the time away was a major factor. My baking classes had occupied weekends, for the most part. Callebaut courses mainly took place during the week. When I began this journey, my kids were 7 and 8, respectively. Old enough to manage themselves in the morning, but not old enough to be alone at home after school.

Hubby came through like a champ though. He made sure I had all the freedom I needed to make it work, bless his heart. And this provides the perfect segue to my next step…

See, at some point I had to ask myself WHY I was taking these classes. Where was I going with this? Over the course of 18 months, I had spent nearly $12,000 on classes (and hotel accommodations). This was starting to add up! Hubby never suggested that I might just be wasting money on a hobby- the classes provided a much-needed escape from my life as wife and mother, and that seemed to suffice as reasons to continue. It didn’t seem to matter whether or not I was actually going to become a pastry chef at some point in the future.

He and I had discussed the possibility of opening my own place someday. The thought terrifies me though. My therapist claims that I’m shying away from the possibility of success because I am too afraid of failure. Now I’m trying to figure out where that whole mentality came from, lol.

But anyhoo…in addition to continuing with my classes, I began purchasing items like silicone and poly carbonate molds, trays, and other specialty items needed to work with chocolate. It was all starting to add up.

And again, Hubby said nothing.

Once I realized that bon bons were not my thing, I moved on to pastry. Having a background and advanced knowledge of working with chocolate certainly wouldn’t hurt, but there were so many other facets to learn when it comes to working with plated desserts and entrements. Yes, entrements, Its a fancy word for dessert. Not ‘cake’, that’s a ‘gateaux’.

Why do I bring that up? Well, my change in focus led to the realization that it was time for me to learn how to speak French. I’m currently in the process of finding a tutor who can help me, but things are looking bleak. As a matter of fact, just today I booked a trip to Paris in October. I had originally wanted to go by myself, and I probably would have, but my good friend Renee said she would like to accompany me.

When she told me she was able to come, I felt both relief and disappointment. Part of me wanted to challenge myself to go on this little journey alone just to see if I could do it. I’m still not sure that I could have done it on my own, but it would’ve been nice to have the opportunity to try. Of course there is some security and having someone else with me. Part of the trip includes a culinary class and it would have been awkward to be the only single person in a group full of couples, which is what I assume the remainder of the people will be because it’s a vacation package.

Point is, I’m trying to spread my wings a little bit. It’s harder than I thought it would be though.

I feel as though I’m a little bit late to the party. My hospitalization in January really opened my eyes. My mortality has become more and more obvious to me.

But that’s a whole different blog.

The take away from all this is that I’m glad I am taking advantage of hubby’s ability and willingness to allow me to grow. I’m not sure whether it’s because he simply would rather not deal with me, or he really is a proponent of me becoming more independent and following my dreams. Then again, I’m not sure it matters much.

But hey- I probably shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, right?. Or as they say in French, “Ne regardez pas un cheval cadeau dans la bouche”.

Or something like that.