Sing Anyway

I used to decorate cakes.

Not put some frosting on a cake and throw a few sprinkles on top decorate cakes.

I took three cake-decorating classes. I learned to make my own buttercream. I learned piping, flowers, basket weave, roses, and all sorts of techniques. Then I started experimenting on my own.

My first attempt at homemade icing was late at night. I did not put a towel over the mixer. I turned it on full speed.

If you’ve never introduced powdered sugar to a mixer at full speed, let me explain what happens.

Everything becomes powdered sugar.

The counter.

The cabinets.

The floor.

Me.

Possibly neighboring parishes.

My husband walked into the kitchen, looked at the disaster with obvious disgust, and walked back out.

By the next morning, I had made sure everything was spotless. But I kept decorating cakes. And I got pretty damn good at it.

I Made Art You Could Eat

I originally learned because I wanted to make themed birthday cakes for my son.

I loved doing it. Eventually I was making basket-weave cakes covered in flowers. Roses. Butterflies. A peacock with a tail cascading down the cake.

For my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary, I attempted my first three-tier cake.

My mother still had the original bride-and-groom topper from their wedding. After almost fifty years, it needed some love, so I restored and repainted it. My mother has albinism and has had white hair since birth. The little bride on the topper had brown hair. So I painted her hair white. Now the bride looked like my beautiful mother.

I made different designs on each tier and covered the cake with roses that climbed up and around it.

I was nervous as hell. It was my first tiered cake. I’d never made that many flowers.

But when I finally stepped back and looked at it?

I felt pretty damn good.

And then my mother saw it. Her smile meant more to me than anything anybody could have said about that cake. I loved making something beautiful for someone I loved.

That was the point.

At least, it was my point.

Then I Started Leaving Off the Frosting

When I brought desserts to gatherings with my husband’s family, I kept hearing variations of the same thing.

There’s too much frosting.

Just leave the frosting off.

There’s nothing wrong with not liking frosting. People are allowed to have preferences. But here’s what I didn’t understand then:

Their preference didn’t have to become mine.

Because the frosting was where my art lived.

The basket weave was frosting.

The flowers were frosting.

The roses were frosting.

The decoration was the part I loved.

And little by little, I accommodated. Eventually I actually brought unfrosted cupcakes to one of their gatherings.

Think about that.

The woman who had learned to make buttercream roses, basket weave, flowers, butterflies and a freaking peacock…

brought naked cupcakes.

Somewhere along the way, making room for what other people preferred had turned into removing what I enjoyed.

Around the same time, my husband was encouraging me to sell my cakes. I didn’t want to. I loved making a cake for someone I cared about and giving it to them. I loved seeing someone’s face when I made something specifically for them.

Selling was different. Now there would be customers. Deadlines. Expectations. Money. Something I did because it brought me joy was starting to feel like something I was supposed to produce.

Eventually, I stopped decorating cakes.

Then There Were the Mushrooms

This probably sounds completely unrelated.

It’s not.

My husband hates mushrooms. He doesn’t particularly like carrots either.

I do. But somewhere along the way, I stopped cooking with them.

There was no Great Mushroom Confrontation. Nobody stood at the kitchen door and declared: MUSHROOMS SHALL NEVER ENTER THIS HOUSE AGAIN.

I simply knew he didn’t like them. So I accommodated. And they disappeared from my food. Recently, I’ve started cooking again. Really cooking. Trying vegetables I’ve never eaten. Experimenting. Figuring out what I like.

And I bought mushrooms. My husband still hates them. Apparently—and this has been quite the revelation— he doesn’t have to eat them.

I can like mushrooms even if he doesn’t. I can put them in my food. Such a tiny thing.

But it made me wonder:

How many tiny things have I removed from my life because somebody else didn’t like them?

And then I remembered singing.

I Stopped Singing

I used to sing. I grew up in a family that sang regardless of whether anybody was particularly gifted at it.

The philosophy was basically: Sing anyway.

Then my husband told me I sounded like a wounded animal. Maybe I do. I have hearing issues. For all I know, I’ve been enthusiastically assaulting musical scales for years.

But here’s the thing:

I wasn’t auditioning.

I wasn’t trying to get a recording contract.

I was singing because I felt like singing.

And eventually, I stopped.

That one hit me differently when I realized it.

Because nobody sat me down and said: You need to become smaller.

Nobody handed me a list:

Stop singing.

Stop decorating cakes.

Stop buying mushrooms.

That’s rarely how these things happen.

Instead, it’s little adjustments.

He doesn’t like that.

They’ll complain about this.

Maybe I shouldn’t.

It’s easier if I don’t.

I’ll leave that part off.

It’s not worth the reaction.

One little accommodation doesn’t feel like anything. Neither does the next one. Until eventually you’re standing there holding a tray of unfrosted cupcakes and you can’t quite remember when you stopped making roses.

Making Room Isn’t the Same as Erasing Yourself

I don’t want the lesson from all this to be:

Stop accommodating other people.

That’s not who I want to become. I love people. I want to consider the people I care about. Sometimes I genuinely want to choose their preference instead of mine because making them happy makes me happy.

There’s nothing wrong with that. But I’m starting to ask myself a different question:

Am I making room for their preference—or am I erasing mine?

Those aren’t the same thing.

My husband doesn’t like mushrooms. Fine. He doesn’t have to eat mushrooms. I do. Someone doesn’t like frosting? Fine. They don’t have to eat the cupcake. But I don’t have to scrape the roses off first.

Everybody gets a place at the table.

Including me.

What’s Your Unfrosted Cupcake?

I wonder how many women have their own version of this.

Something you stopped wearing.

Somewhere you stopped going.

Music you stopped playing.

A friend you stopped calling.

Something you stopped creating.

Food you stopped eating.

A laugh you learned to quiet.

Maybe you don’t even remember making a decision to stop.

Maybe somebody criticized it.

Maybe somebody rolled their eyes.

Maybe accommodating everybody else was simply easier.

And perhaps reclaiming yourself doesn’t have to begin with some enormous, life-changing declaration.

Maybe you don’t have to blow up your life.

Maybe you just notice one missing thing.

And put it back.

Buy the mushrooms.

Pick up the paintbrush.

Make the cake.

Try something you’re probably going to be terrible at.

And if the song you love comes on?

Sing.

Maybe you’re magnificent.

Maybe you sound like a wounded animal.

Sing anyway.