Goldilocks Bread with Chocolate and Nuts. Lots of Nuts.

I have spent many hours and dollars in therapy to be told by a professional that I have an addiction to people-pleasing. We talk about it like it’s an illness I’m recovering from, because it might as well be. It’s like I rolled out of the womb with this unnerving need to make everyone around me happy. While it does genuinely make me feel good, after thirty-something years of this exhausting infatuation with doing things to be liked or loved, it’s time I tone it the fuck down and get extra needy with my own needs. 

I’ve baked so much banana bread during this pandemic that even I’m annoyed with myself. To paint the picture, it’s probably five times more bread than I’ve documented on social media - I see my own content and think, “Goddammit, if she bakes another goddamn loaf of bread...”

I’m incredibly lucky to have wonderful, overly-polite people around me who let me feed them. They’ve taken on my emotional baggage and watched me change my ages-old bread recipe because whoever I’m dating decided I make it “wrong”. With Danny, there could be absolutely no chocolate chips. How dare I even think about putting chocolate in his precious purist bread. Christopher couldn’t have nuts in his banana bread. Absolutely no nuts, the crunch doesn’t make sense with the chocolate and I’m the first sociopath to combine nuts and chocolate with bananas. Calm down, Marina, it’s just banana bread. 

My friends deserve an award for lovingly biting their tongues, watching me leave out the chocolate chips, then the nuts, changing this meaningless little part of my fabric to convince someone I just met I was their long lost unicorn. It’s just bread, but I’ve had that recipe memorized for years and then made myself change this thing programmed in my brain- this thing that determined if I was worthy of the same effort I gave. 

I put myself through baking rehab this weekend and baked four loaves of my banana bread- one for each of my people who had to suffer through the modified versions. If an athlete gets knocked down, in the rehab process, they do the thing they’re known for over and over again until they’re the best at it again. This was my rehab. This little kitchen marathon was the thing I decided I could do for me, for someone else, but still for my own joy. And here’s hoping I’ll never again talk myself into change disguised as compromise. 

Oh, but the people pleasing addiction runs deep! With unlearning any bad habit, you have to inspect it under a magnifying glass, just until the cringe on your face justifies botox. I took an hour to clean out cobwebs in the form of notes in my phone. There’s plenty of birthday reminders and restaurant hit lists, but there’s also gems like these:

Boys 2 Men, Radiocity 2/15 - The concert I meant to get tickets for and thank goodness I didn’t because that guy and I broke up the week before Valentine’s Day that year. 

Emporio, Nutella calzone- The favorite dessert I had to remember to pick up in case he landed his promotion. 

36 high, 32 long- The dimensions I measured out for the kitchen island I was helping another one pick out.

Rainbow Kitten Surprise, Mother Mother- The rare records I had to remember to hunt down so I could win my own thoughtfulness award and play the whole thing off like it was something I just happened to stumble upon in a Bushwick warehouse. 

My brain and my heart hurt thinking about the lengths I’ve gone to to hold onto people. I owed it to myself to spend a weekend baking Goldilocks banana bread with lots of nuts and lots of chocolate-  a just right version, the way I’ve always made it. (Nevermind that I’ve lost count of how much banana bread I’ve baked in the last year and it’s truly time to move on to a different Covid-chic hobby.)

Another thing I’ve spent a lot of money and hours to learn from a professional- you can’t make anyone happy and no one can make you happy. Do it all your way, with love. Someone might pick out the nuts or the chocolate chips- let them. 

Just in case you do wander in a sparkly direction not meant for you, I hope you have loving, patient people on the other end cheering you on, ready to Charlotte someone with a “I curse the day you were born” enthusiasm or just bring you home to yourself. It’s a brave thing to show people you love them at the risk that they might not love the way that you do, but I hope you’ll never start a battle with yourself and change in ways you don’t need to change. 

From a recovering people pleaser, you’re actually the prize people get when you let them in - authenticity and openness is the only thing you have to give to keep them.