What I learned from cupcakes...

My delightful chocolate cupcakes.

After longing to whip up some scrumptious chocolate cupcakes for a few months, I finally gave in about a week ago and got my baking on. In no time, with a little help from Duncan Hines double chocolate cake mix, and a good measure of Hershey’s chocolate syrup, I had four cupcake trays beautifully arrayed with dark, glistening, chocolaty, batter.  In they went into my pre-heated oven, and off I went back to attend to some television viewing. After a few minutes I got up and switched on the oven light to catch a glimpse of how my brown babies were coming along. They looked gorgeous! I thought about taking a picture and sending it on facebook along with the message that “I’m baking cupcakes” – I felt my fans on the What TnT Woman Want facebook fan page might appreciate a little morsel of information like that on a quiet Monday evening. But alas, my camera had no batteries, and the only other camera in my home was attached to a blackberry phone owned (now) by my daughter, who was not at home. So, I just shot off a message saying that I was baking cupcakes.

Soon after, I had an enlightening thought “As engaging as sharing your moments with others is, just enjoy this moment for you. Some things are just meant to be done alone.” That thought sparked another thought, “Every major accomplishment someone achieves is usually done alone.”

Come to think of it, I don’t think Edison, Einstein, or the Wright brothers had a lot of company or went around sharing every thought or triumphant moment they had with everyone who would listen – could you imagine Edison going to people 1,000 times (that’s how many ‘failed’ attempts he had before making the first viable incandescent light bulb) and saying, “I know where I went wrong, I think I should….” More than likely what he did instead most times, was sit very quietly all alone, or paced the floor as a solitary soldier, taxing his brain for where he went wrong, and the idea for his next move forward.  

Not everything is meant to be shared – at least not a ball by ball account of the experience - and sometimes with the real-time sharing capabilities of facebook, skype, and texting, we forget to keep a little bit of ourselves, for ourselves alone.

It’s good to share, but emptying yourself all the time results in you being empty – tired and devoid of the energy to create and recreate your life.

And that’s the truth.

That said, it didn’t hurt to share the pics of my cupcakes after the fact (daughter took shot of them when she came in) - when I had experienced the joy of me, my daughter and some of her friends, devouring them over the course of three days.

See, even cupcakes know the value of  'alone time' :)

Don’t you want to just eat this up?