Cinnamon Apple Pumpkin-Butter French Toast
I made a whole baking pan of this recipe today because Keshav is not working and we get to have breakfast together. I am not sure how the leftovers will keep--I split them into two portions: one for eating this week, and the other for freezing. It is possible the frozen leftovers will not thaw and reheat well, but that is the risk I am willing to take because there is no way we can eat all the leftovers in one week!
After breakfast, he worked on schoolwork and I prepped for dinner tomorrow and started the kitchen deep cleaning to get a jump on it. I cleaned the window blinds, the window and screen, and shaved at least 20 minutes off the cleaning for tomorrow. This is important, since the deep cleaning involves physical exertion, so splitting up the physically exerting tasks makes better use of my energy.
Keshav liked the French Toast very much and suggested it might be a good Christmas Day Brunch item to make for the family when we are back in Boston for the holidays. I will think about it. I liked the recipe, but there are others to consider that are just as good or better. I agree with the recipe commenters that it would be better if the bread baked up crispier. For our Boston holiday, the main thing is that it be easy to prep ahead of time so I can just pop it in the oven on Christmas Day. Although now that I think about it, there is little room in the in-laws fridge to store a baking pan. I will have to figure it out.
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Yesterday at work I saw a couple I have worked with for a number of years, both together, and as individuals. I am very fond of both of them, but their marriage is problematic on many levels and I am not sure if they will stay together in the long term. Fortunately for me, that is not something I need to decide--they get to decide. My task is to help them have the difficult conversations they need in order to make hard decisions. This is why they come to me.
In the session, we discussed the idea of how one decides if they are thriving in a marriage. This is such an important issue that, earlier today, I outlined a future professional article I plan to write about the topic. For our purposes here I want to just touch upon the issue as it applies to my own marriage.
What does it mean to thrive? That is the central question in all of this, because it varies from person to person. The wife in our session said that she is not able to be her "best self" in the marriage, suggesting that for her, thriving has specific parameters and feelings that are somewhat dependent on who she is with. Her best self was identified by how she experiences herself in the world, and the way she currently experiences herself with her husband is not ideal.
I have long thought that we choose in our lives based on how we feel about ourselves when we are with these people. It's not all about us, but it is to a great extent. Why wouldn't we want to be around people around whom we feel smart, sexy, funny, and interesting?
I think most people would define thriving as feeling happy, authentic, and connected; retaining some individual autonomy while at the same time being in relationship. While valid, those parameters are limiting in my opinion, because they exclude one of the most important aspects of thriving: discomfort.
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My relationship with my husband started right after I became licensed to practice psychotherapy. It was a turning point in my life where my climb up the ladder had finally reached the goal of becoming a licensed therapist. I began our relationship right around the same time that I ended a journey of individual accomplishment.
Since that time I have experienced a variety of ups and downs, including the surprises that come with an aging body, the challenges of building and sustaining a private practice, and joining my husband's family as a person who needs them less than they need me. At times I have felt depressed, confused, and frustrated, but I have also felt loved, respected, and seen. I have wondered how things would have panned out in the last dozen years had I not met Keshav and continued to be single.
The curiosity for the path not taken is one of the ways I am exploring this question: Am I thriving? I entered into individual therapy this year so I could navigate this inquiry with a compassionate other, and that has helped immensely.
I suppose everyone has moments of wondering "what if?" in their lives. What if I had done this, or what if I had done that, or moved to this place or been with this person instead of that person. When people explore alternate paths, they are often wondering if they would have been happier with an alternate choice. As an example, my client yesterday said that she is "not happy", but what was more telling is her admission that she hates who she is in the marriage, and that she wonders who she would have been had she made a different choice.
There is no world where hating oneself is a part of thriving. But that doesn't mean we're not thriving when our relationship regularly forces us to confront parts of ourselves that are based in fear, judgement, or pain. In fact, we can count on a relationship forcing us to confront these parts, because that is what comes up when we try to get something without giving.
In my marriage, after nearly a year of my current exploration, I have concluded that I am in fact thriving, for the simple reason that my marriage challenges me to be a better version of myself every fucking day. It does not make this task too difficult, fortunately. In the outside world, I am not always a better version of myself: I am often judgmental, impatient, and lacking compassion. It's not like I don't feel these things in my marriage, but Keshav makes it easy for me to choose the opposite of that rather quickly. It's easier for me to be my better self with him than it is in the outside world.
If that's not thriving, then I don't know what is.
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