Part One: When the Fire Went Out
I did not realize how far gone I was.
Burnout does not always arrive as a blaze. It creeps in like mist. I started turning down catering jobs. I told myself they were too small or I was too busy, but the truth was that I started feeling stresses about every step of the job. I stopped enjoying the market. The colors, the smells, the textures of ingredients waiting to be transformed was transformed into urgent lists for Costco and the restaurant supply store. The pleasure of cooking had flattened into a task list. I was tired all the time. Numb. Going through the motions.
No one seemed to notice, which only deepened the ache. I had pushed myself past the breaking point without falling apart on the outside. But inside, it was already gone.
What I did not understand then was that when the burnout took my business, it also took my joy. Cooking was not just work for me, it was memory, ritual, and identity. It was the summer I tried to recreate fudge so obsessively my mother threatened to stop buying sugar. It was learning to bake bread with my aunt, cooking for friends in the dorm, dancing to jazz while making crepes for my kids. Food was how I nurtured others. It was how I nurtured myself.
And for the last ten years, I was without it.
This morning, I began an embodiment practice. It asked me to move slowly and to feel everything. So I made breakfast, deliberately. I sat. I chewed. I noticed how rushed I usually feel, even with the whole day ahead of me.
I saw how the joy of cooking had been buried under pressure. The pressure to be fast, to be efficient, to get it over with. I explored this feeling through my Human Design. My undefined root center has always made me feel like I have to move quickly, like stillness is danger.
But today I saw that the invitation is to honor slow.
To let pleasure return in its own time. To allow the love to rise back up. To cook like I once did, just because it felt good to.
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