Peanut Butter Cup Hot Chocolate

I’ve begun this post about 50 different ways and I’m certain that I have about 50 more ideas hoping for their chance to surface. Apparently, I have a lot to say. Which is a good thing since I want to be a writer and write more and share more of what I write. But it’s also poses a challenge: which words to share today? Which words to share with this particular recipe? Are there right words? Perhaps, sometimes there are. Perhaps sometimes certain things need to go together to form the whole of their potential and perhaps other times we just choose something and we send it out into the universe and move on.

For some reason, this peanut butter cup hot chocolate recipe feels very near and dear to me, like a child I’m birthing into the world, one that deserves just the right preamble. It’s a representation of so many things I love, and so many facets of the 30 something woman I have grown into and am really getting to know.

It’s an embodiment of my love of mornings, a love I’ve only been able to put into practice for the last two-ish years yet this habit feels like a tangible marker, a notch, a worn indent, that I can touch and neatly see: Before and After. At some point, I hope I can see that it was me all along.

It feels like a representation of the forgiveness I’m seeking towards myself right now and the acceptance of myself that is growing day by day. This morning as I drove through the cold smoke surrounded by the blue only available in predawn winter mornings I felt that forgiveness and acceptance gain a millimeter of footing within me. There was an exhale and the space of that breath is now occupied by just a little more love for myself.

It feels indulgent. Luxurious. Like the simplest and brightest moments of my daily life do. Because I didn’t know I could have it so good.

It feels soothing and safe–places I’m currently seeking out quite often as I also go through a season of change where so much feels so hard. I often think, wow, I didn’t know it was going to be this hard. Or why is this so hard? Or how can it be so good and so hard at the same time?

And it is quiet and expansive. Two things I crave daily no matter where I am in the world. Two words that I’m beginning to recognize are not only a craving but also a necessity for this season of change.

In the end I have said everything I’ve previously written and none of it at all. But these words feel right. They feel like they capture a little piece of why I’m here taking up this space on the Internet and why I want you to be able, if you choose, to make this simple cup of childlike thick hot chocolate too.