Banana Cream Pie

Baked by my fourth-born, devoured by me.

Last week, I celebrated my birthday by blowing out a mountain of flaming candles on a banana cream pie.

Sigh. Yawn. Not exactly a riveting report, I know.

But here's the plot twist. 

For the past, oh, I don't know, at least fifty years – ever since I was in middle school - I've requested for my birthday an angel food cake.

That, my friends, is a LOT of angel food cake. So much so, in fact, that somehow the tangy, tender mouthfuls of light and airy bliss have become entangled with the idea of my birthday - my very sense of myself - to the point that neither I nor my family could imagine one without the other. In honor of this beautifully simple and long-lived tradition, I simply MUST have angel food cake for my birthday, right?

Every year for the rest of my life, right?

Well, I don't know. Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky, but this year it just felt all wrong.

My life has been wonderful, and I've carried many beautiful traditions worth upholding, but I suddenly realize that I'm not tied or beholden to any of them. The past does not dictate the present moment, nor the future. On any given day, I am free to reinvent myself however I want.

No matter how many years I may have left to live - we never know for certain, do we - I'm sure as heck not interested in just sitting around as the same old me, unafraid or perhaps more accurately, unsure of how to launch new directions in my life. 

While I'm not about to throw out the baby with the bathwater - after all, just like every other year, I did request from my family a special birthday dessert, beamed in silence as they sang to me, and blew out a forest of blazing candles – I’m feeling bold and determined this year to reinvent myself however I may see fit.

So cheers to you, banana cream pie, for setting me squarely back on a path of discovery and adventure.

And as for you, angel food cake, I still love you. And who knows. I may just come back to you next year.