Ok so I finally did it! Let me be completely honest… I hate baking with a passion. I mean HATE it. Way too precise and too much science for this art school chick.
I have been at this sourdough thing for weeks. Every week I have made a solid brick-like doorstop. So dense even the dogs wouldn’t eat it, and rightfully so. I continued trying. I’m super stubborn when I decide to do something and won’t stop until I make it work (ask me about the time someone told me I couldn’t run a marathon!) This is something I need to do to help stay connected to Jaidon and connect with him spiritually since that is the best I can do now.
I suspect Jaidon went through a similar process at first, but I know if he were still here with us he would be laughing his ass off at watching me fuck this up week after week.
This week I used Jaidon’s starter to make bread. Don’t get me wrong, this loaf didn’t hold a candle to the amazing flavor his loaves had but at least the texture was closer.
This process has taught me a lot about patience and perseverance and defeat. Not just the baking but also losing Jaidon.
This week, like the past almost six, has been tough. On Friday night I completely fell apart. Cried harder and more intensely than I did the night I learned about his death. Cried myself to sleep and woke up with purple eyelids. What was the trigger? Fuck if I know.
Quite frankly I don’t need a trigger to fall into a weepy pile of tears. I spontaneously burst into tears all the time, welcome to my “new normal.”
During the week I seem to be able to (kind of) hold it together well enough to work, but the lack of structure in the evenings combined with the exhaustion of holding myself together all day provides ample meltdowns.
The weekends have become a cross between the need to crash and rest and that having too much idle time alone with my thoughts which are debilitating.
My new life as I know it is…awful. Nightmare doesn’t accurately describe it. I’m so thankful to my village for caring for us, checking in, dragging my anti-social ass out, feeding us, giving hugs, sending notes. You make it suck a little less and you have no idea how much that means.