When you grow up in what can only be described by the dysfunctional of families in town as the MOST dysfunctional family in town, you have to learn to search elsewhere for some sort of stabilizing influence. While I never really had a lot of contact with my Aunt, the contact I did have has had tremendous influence on my tenuous grasp of stability.
My childhood family mottos could have included such classics as “if you can’t do it perfectly you shouldn’t even start”, or “We COULD do that but to do it ‘right’ these 12 things have to be done first”, or “if you are working on something and it starts to go wrong, don’t make it worse, instead just leave it there part way done and somehow it will fix itself eventually”.
As a result of these ideas and a terrible fear of ever doing something that wasn’t “perfect”, my entire life was a series of lofty goals and unstarted or unfinished projects. I was virtually paralyzed.
Here’s where my aunt comes in… She has a much different philosophy on life. When she sees something she wants to do, she just does it, and whether a ‘professional’ would consider it ‘perfect’ or not, nobody can argue that her life and her house is a lot more comfortable and put together than mine might ever be. My Aunt has a way of looking at everything that assumes that nothing is actually a FAILURE, you just have to look at it a bit differently.
One of my favourite things about my Aunt is her Christmas Fudge. I remember the year she showed me how to make the fudge, I’d heard from so many people that you have to be so careful with fudge because it “might not set properly” and when I said something to my aunt about that she said “oh, that doesn’t matter, if it doesn’t set you just have a batch of ice cream topping!”
Fast forward to the other day, I was having a horrible night dealing with family drama and decided to make myself some brownies from scratch… as you can probably guess from the direction of this post, it wasn’t going well… this is the conversation I had with my aunt…
ME: I’m not sure what I did to these brownies… perhaps the batter is too deep… the centre is not cooking at all… and the outside is puffed up over the pan….
i might just give up and eat it with a spoon
AUNTIE: One does what one needs too
ME: hehe i always remember your advice about that you never fail at fudge… you win at icecream topping
AUNTIE: Indeed!
ME: So they were in there for like an hour… I pulled it out looking like this… it didn’t fall in… it never rose
But the top is rock solid
And the inside is molten lava
don’t even really care… i’m eating the damned thing
AUNTIE: Tear off the crispy bits and dip em in the juicy bit win win
ME: this is why i love you!
AUNTIE: Its a skill i was born with…
ME: the crispy bits are almost candied… they are sticking in my teeth
it isn’t half bad
might cause dental issues later… but that’s okay too
AUNTIE: Power through it
ME: lol
it’s chocolatey and good… and i used gluten free flour… so… i can eat all i want lol
AUNTIE: You go girl!!
ME: maybe it’s just the “worlds largest lava cake”
AUNTIE: Now im jealous!!
ME: uh oh… may have eaten too much lava cake in one sitting…lol
kind of dizzy and my heart is doing something odd lol
AUNTIE: What a way to go tho…
ME: oh yeah… death by chocolate
the coroner will be all “how did she get candied chocolate stuck in every tooth?!”
AUNTIE: Then he will finish the pan….
ME: haha cause he’ll be jealous
AUNTIE: Yup
So as you can see, everyone needs an Auntie!
~Elena <3
