on baking cakes

last week, i was roped into a round of “would you rather” with friends, a game i find, in equal parts, asinine and eerily telling. because occasionally, between absurd hypotheticals, a question slips through that brushes up against something tender. an admission you’d never hear over dinner, a truth not even a second bottle of wine could coax forth.

would you rather be with someone you love or someone who loves you?

at the time, i stuffed an olive in my mouth, mumbled something noncommittal, laughed it off. but the question persisted, rattling in my mind like loose change in a washing machine. later that evening—alone, contacts out, lights dimmed, lofi on—i sat with it.

of course, the correct answer is “both.” we want to love and be loved. mutually, simultaneously, wholeheartedly. but this isn’t the time for perfect answers for perfect people in a perfect world. this is a thought experiment. so let’s play.

would i rather love or be loved?

my heart answers before my mind does: be loved.

it feels soft, generous, easy. and yet, for most of my life, i chased the opposite. love was a conquest, a tree to be chopped down. i was a woodsman of affection, calloused hands gripping the axe of persistence, chips of pride scattered at my feet. perhaps it was the refrigerator adorned only with a+ reds, the speech competitions that determined my weekend worth, or the family dinners that doubled as performance reviews—i came to believe love was something you achieved, won, earned.

in middle school, i had a crush on this girl, who wore puka shell necklaces and smelled of cucumber melon (thank you, bath & body works). i was sure she was the most beautiful person i’d ever seen.

for her birthday, i begged my mom, who worked long hours and never quite understood my american brand of teenage angst, to drive me to our local ralphs, so i could pick out a betty crocker box cake. i was up for hours, mixing, baking, frosting; i even used those weird little sugar letters to spell out her name.

the next day, cheeks red and palms sweating, i handed it to her. she blinked. a flat “thank you.” and that was that. to this day, i still wonder if she ate it. (i would’ve. betty crocker never misses.)

looking back, i wince a little, but i also see i wasn’t really baking for her. i was baking for the fantasy of being seen. of being chosen. i thought if she just saw me—the fun, the thoughtful, the capable-of-baking parts of me—she’d realize. she’d know. she’d love me back. (and yes, i’m using love in that very loose middle school kind of way, but you get the point.)

this pattern repeated for years. high school, college, early adulthood. i was obsessed with the idea of making people fall for me, especially the ones who were clearly never going to. i made playlists for people who barely knew my name, i drove hours to “accidentally” run into someone at their favorite coffee shop, i wrote poetry for a girl who studied literature. she praised my imagery while dating my roommate.

i always wanted what i couldn’t have, believing that if this person—this living, breathing embodiment of all my insecurities—could love me, i’d finally feel worthy enough to love myself. their affection, a kind of currency i could use to purchase my self-acceptance.

funny, how we so often run toward the ones who don’t want us, while the people ready to nourish and nurture us stand quietly waiting in the wings. adam and eve syndrome: we hunger for the fruit we cannot have. but in reaching for the forbidden, we miss the abundance. we ignore the hands that already hold us, we overlook the ones who truly see us, we silence the voices that constantly call our names.

i spent so many years baking cakes for people who were never hungry, offering sweetness to the indifferent, frosting my longing with the hope it might one day taste like love.

now? i choose the ground that welcomes me, the soil that waters me, the sun that warms me without asking me to bloom.

now, i bake for the one who stays long enough to enjoy a slice.