Do you know how to bake bread?

Not banana bread. Not the kind you throw together to avoid throwing out fruit.

I mean actual bread. Flour, water, yeast, salt. The kind that requires… faith. And upper body strength of a wrestler.

The first time I tried to bake bread, it ended in what I can only describe as a beige paperweight. It had no rise, no softness, and a crust that could chip a molar. No notes.

One time the attempt looked promising, then collapsed in the oven in a display of theatrical hopelessness I deeply related to.

My Instagram Saved Folder Could Feed a Nation

…in theory.

I have bookmarked 47 variations of “seeded, gluten-free, protein-rich, artisan-style, no-knead bread in 20 minutes.”

Let me be clear:

None of them took 20 minutes.

And nothing about them was instant.

One recipe required chia seeds, flax meal, rolled oats, psyllium husk, and the spiritual strength of five generations of forefathers. It produced a loaf that looked like something Indian Army would be glad to use, as a weapon of mass destruction.

Yet, I kept going. Because I believed. In bread. In warmth. In carbs. In the idea that maybe, just maybe, I could become the kind of person who bakes bread.

Frankly, I cannot.

Here’s the thing: I was trying to be that person. ( Maybe somewhat inspired by a certain Duchess) You know the one – calmly pulling out warm loaves from the oven while humming something soulful, Instagram-ready at 6:30 AM. Instead, I became the person googling “Why does my dough smells like nail polish remover.”

Turns out, it can – if the yeast dies a tragic death. Which it did. Several times.

But I kept going.

The Things We Fail At Quietly

I have failed at many things with a similar sense of misplaced optimism which keeps politicians going and a certain person to be President and demand a Noble Prize.

I have attempted morning routines with affirmation notebooks in mauve colour. I have downloaded meditation apps and deleted them two days later.

I have journaled, vision-boarded, and convinced myself that the right watercolor box will solve my existential crisis.

None of these stuck.

Neither did the first twenty five loaves. And yet here I am – still kneading, still learning, still somehow not entirely discouraged.

To me there’s something oddly comforting about failing at something low-stakes. It teaches you how to keep your humor intact.

The Awkward, Underrated Middle : What Bread Knows That We Forget

There’s a stage in bread-making called bulk fermentation.

The dough looks like a blob. It’s sticky, slow, and shapeless. It clings to your hands, resists instructions, and frankly, doesn’t inspire confidence.

This is the part no one posts online. It doesn’t care about the life changing 7 minute productivity hack, or one’s tendency to panic when something doesn’t show results immediately.

Bread just breathes. Quietly. And becomes. Bread knows how to wait.

There are no aesthetic reels for the middle – of baking, of healing, of reinvention. It knows that rising is not performance – it is biology, chemistry, warmth, and time.

It’s not dramatic enough to be a crisis, nor polished enough to be a comeback. It just sits there. Slightly wet. Slightly weird. Mocking.

My instinct was always to fix it. Add flour. Poke it. Reshape it before it was ready.

But the dough, like most living things, needed to be left alone. What I learned – slowly, and then all at once – was this:

You can’t bully things into becoming.

Not bread.

Not your career.

Not your sense of self.

Not your version of relationship.

And I needed that reminder. That becoming doesn’t always look like growth. Sometimes it looks like a quiet bowl in a quiet kitchen, under a clean towel, doing nothing visible at all.

When the Loaf is a Little Misshapen – and Still Beautiful

Eventually, one loaf turned out okay.

Not photogenic. But golden. A little cracked on the top. Slightly asymmetrical, and looked like most things I love.

I sliced it, buttered it, and sat in silence.

It tasted like softness. Like effort. Like humility. And it made me think about all the other things I’ve tried and failed and still loved: Relationships that taught me more in leaving than in staying. Jobs that stretched me thin but helped me see where I needed to grow.

Projects and paintings that never became anything – except proof that I cared enough to begin. In some ways, I am a catalogue of imperfect loaves. But I’ve learned to see the beauty in that too.

A Loaf, a Life

I think about this a lot.

I’d like to say that baking bread made me more grounded, more patient, more whole.

But mostly, it made me better at cleaning sticky bowls and lowering expectations.

My last loaf had a crack down the center and a slightly raw patch in the middle.

I ate it anyway. With salted butter and the misplaced arrogance of someone who knows better and does it wrong anyway.

Somehow, I still keep doing it.

Not because I think I’ll get it right. But because I’ve stopped needing to. And there’s something oddly comforting about trying again – even when law of averages tells you how it might turn out.

Pro tip: You can always toast the parts that didn’t rise.

I’ve failed at many things. Bread just happens to be the only one that leaves crumbs.

And if you ask me, that feels like progress.

If your life feels like underproofed dough – sticky, unformed, not quite what you wanted yet – give it time. Give it warmth. And please, don’t throw it away. Some things just need a little longer to become what they’re meant to be.