Sarah looked out the window of Sarah's Sweet Cakes and wondered when her real life was going to start. Then she laughed at herself for being overly dramatic. She remembered what Sean, the absurdly flexible 22 year old yoga instructor at her fitness club, always said at the end of class, " Today is the first day and the last day and the only day that matters." Living in the moment was definitely NOT Sarah's strong suit. Left to her own devices, Sarah's mind always wandered back to the past and far into the future, rarely stopping to rest in the NOW.
Dr. Lingstrom, her on again-off again therapist, helped Sarah understand that it had all probably started when she was a shy girl growing up with an overbearing mother and an attention-craving older sister. Sarah's natural shyness caused her to be the bread to their peanut butter and jelly, the ketchup to their burger and fries. Her dad was the milkshake that washed it all down, sweet and delicious but not the most essential part of the meal.
Sometimes, Sarah actually thought that she married Ted right after college because he made her feel like the star ingredient and not just another condiment. Now that strikes her as pathetically ironic since when he left, he managed to make her feel like yesterday's garbage. By the time people reach 40, they usually have at least one story and Sarah's was a doozy. Though she tried hard to re-write it or re-frame it, it remained the big event that had shaped her adult life so far. As far as defining moments go, Sarah thought, some people had it far worse than she did. Laura Allen, one of her closest friends in high school, had driven a packed car of girls home from a party and killed two of her best friends when she lost control of the car and drove off the road into a ravine. More than twenty years later, this was still Laura's story. As luck would have it, Sarah had been seconds away from catching a ride with them when Abigail showed up to drive her home as per Miriam's demand. Unfortunately, neither Abigail nor Miriam ever let Sarah forget that they saved her life that night. Somehow it all added to Sarah's innate feelings of unworthiness. Left to her own devices, she believed, she was always just a step away from tragedy.
Miriam's constant micro-management of Sarah's life had left Sarah feeling always off-center, as if somehow she had been born missing the self-protection gene.The very first memory Sarah can recall is a perfect example of this. Sarah remembers watching Abigail and Miriam bake cookies. Even then, Sarah was soothed by the smell of melted butter and brown sugar and the rich, life-affirming scent of fresh vanilla beans. The kitchen, painted a soft salmon color then, and now, had always been Sarah's favorite part of the house. On this lovely autumn summer day in Sarah's third year of life, she had been watching her mother and sister mix the batter for chocolate chip cookies. When they left the room, and the cookies were baking in the oven, she had wandered back into the kitchen and decided to help herself to one of the delicious- smelling cookies mid-bake. She pulled the kitchen chair over to the oven and climbed on top of it. Then she reached her hand to the oven and attempted to open the oven door. Suddenly a strange shrill alarm sounded causing her to lose her balance and fall off the chair. Miriam was at her side in an instant, soothing her bumped head and calming her jangled nerves. As it turns out, clever safety conscious Miriam had rigged a self-contrived contraption that would go off if the oven door was opened while the oven was turned on. Her goal was NOT to avoid cookie thefts but rather to prevent childhood burns. This early memory set the tone for Sarah's growing up years. Miriam was always there to ward off evil and accidents before they could hurt her precious daughters.
The warm domestic scene prior to Sarah's attempt to free a baking cookie from the oven was actually not a common occurrence in the Steinberg household. Usually, Granny Sue, who was their housekeeper not their actual grandmother, was the one doing the baking with the girls. Since most of their friends had moms at home, Miriam insisted that they call the housekeeper "Granny Sue" so that her connection to them would seem familial rather than mercenary. Often, Miriam tried to control the way others saw things. She wanted the mothers at the park to think that Granny Sue was genuinely fond of the girls and not just the hired help. Actually. Granny Sue WAS genuinely fond of the girls, and in many ways she was more like the kind of mother Sarah actually needed and wanted. Was that because of the way Miriam managed the situation? Was it because Miriam intentionally chose a housekeeper who complemented her own skills? Did Miriam's insistence that she be called Granny somehow insure that she would feel like a member of the family? Sarah often thought that her mother had some special magic, that she knew how to make the world conform to her wishes. Sarah was often envious of this skill; life rarely seemed to conform to Sarah's wishes. Of her top four wishes, she had received one(**), and that was due largely to Miriam's persistent intervention.
Wish Number One: Fall in Love (again) and Have a Happy and Successful Marriage
Wish Number Two: Become a Mother
**Wish Number Three: Open Up her own Bake Shop
Wish Number Four: Make Peace with her Life
Sarah's favorite teacher in high school had been a History teacher named Mr. Jones, and he was an Emersonian scholar --that is, he was obsessed with all things Ralph Waldo Emerson. The walls of his classroom had been covered with poster-sized Emerson quotes. Sarah loved the one that said: "NOBODY CAN BRING YOU PEACE BUT YOURSELF." Now, at 42, Sarah felt that Emerson was incredibly wise and his words were incredibly true. The trick, she thought, would be figuring out how to find peace before it was too late.
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