Leo's comment

I recently received this comment from a guy named Leo:

hi there cynthia, i stumbled upon your blog because i have been looking for pastry schools all over europe and. i think that you have had an interesting experience, so it just seems all the more sad that you should end up behind a computer in order to earn a living. why, after spending so much money and time and energy do you not try to make your dream of opening your own pastry shop (i believe you said so somewhere) come true. try at least. i say so perhaps because i find that you have very little to say now, in contrast to your time in paris.

Wow. Reading that took my breath away. Leo's comment reminded me why I first started this blog: to chronicle my pursuit of happiness via my newly recognized interest in food. I had left a computer job in Seattle, returned to grad school for English lit, and was about to move out to California to try working at a cooking school.

Two jobs, three cities, and one very expensive cooking school tuition bill later, I've come right back full circle to working full-time in computers. What happened? Leo's comment stuck with me. Somebody thinks my life right now is sad.

That night while we were making dinner (homemade pizza!) I asked my boyfriend, "So, have I inadvertently become this tragic figure? Someone to be pitied for trying to escape their workaday life and find their passion, only to wind up right back where they began? I mean, it does look really bad on paper."

He said no, I wasn't tragic. But then again, any boyfriend worth his salt knows that when your girlfriend asks you if she's pathetic, the answer had better be no!

To answer your comment, Leo: it's complicated. Everything looks the same, I guess, but it's all completely different. Yeah, I'm working in computers again. But somehow this time around I really am happy. (This statement is, of course, subject to change at any time, and if it does, you'll hear about it.)

The last few years have helped me realize that there are infinite ways to live your life.

Well, duh.

Seriously, though, I didn't understand this until recently. I somehow had it in my head that I was supposed to be on this straight-shot tidy trajectory from college graduation to retirement, with stops along the way for socially acceptable Life Events like marriage and children.

But here's what I've learned: after working blissfully through graduate school, cooking in France, traveling a bunch, and discovering that I could be paid to work as an editor, I've also figured out how to be content in the knowledge that my own particular life is always going to be a big, messy, challenging muddle. It's definitely never going to look trim and sensible on paper (or the internet).

So, Leo, thanks for making me think through this stuff, but cut me some slack. A girl's gotta cool her heels, unpack her bags and earn some money once in a while before she takes on the next life challenge. The culinary stuff isn't over, it's just on a back burner (get it?) as I figure out my latest version of life and become a functional member of society again instead of One Who Eats Foie Gras and Depletes Her Savings (which, I admit, is MUCH more fun to read about). And yeah, I dream of owning a patisserie, or a gelateria, or a cafe, but I also dream about living in a ton of places, traveling the world, eating at the French Laundry, getting in shape, earning a Ph.D. and doing nothing with it, joining the Peace Corps, writing a book, owning a home with a garden (or at least getting a single bloody tree planted outside our new apartment), becoming a competent knitter, working in a food-related career that actually helps people who aren't rich and fancy, and getting a cat.

See? Messy. Muddled. Complicated. (Does the cat travel with me?) Perhaps impossible (getting in shape). Just wish me luck ...