Last Thursday I received an email with a reply I wasn’t expecting (a rejection on a project I was so hopeful for). My husband had been out of town for forever and the kids were at their worst. I still had to write 5 more pages for my MFA workshop submission and revise all 20 pages before sending them off. My Rosario Central team lost on the quarter finals of Copa Libertadores de America on the very last second. I was tasting the victory on the tip of my tongue! And then all I had was bitterness. I’d been without a phone since the week before (still no phone), and it was my parents’ 39th wedding anniversary. It was stormy and dreary outside, and my dad called me because of course he can’t call my mom. After his “Hola, hija,” we both cried wordlessly and silently on either side of the phone, until one of us was more recovered and made a comment about the weather and plans for an asado on Sunday.

On Friday, however, I finished my workshop piece. Panda Bear and his best from preschool wanted a picnic before friend’s trip, and we went to the park. Panda, friend, friend’s mom and I had a wonderful time although the day was blustery and gray. I pretended the wind was lifting the burden off of my shoulders. My little stressors were nothing when seen one by one (except missing my mom. That’s a huge cloud of grief I can’t ever shake off), but all of them combined made my knees buckle. So after the picnic and because Panda Bear was sobbing about his friend’s leaving for two weeks, I drove us to Kneaders for a treat. “I need the chocolatiest thing you have,” I told the girl at the drive-through. She could only offer me the chocolate dome but a one serving chocolate dome wasn’t what I had in mind.

So I asked my friend and my kids’ babysitter C. to bring me the Costco chocolate cake on her way to our house for the usual Friday night craziness. The chocolate cake from Costco that I’ve usually referred to as the everlasting cake. It’s rich and empalagosa and it never, ever ends.

“What’s the occasion?” C. asked.

“Life,” I said, “We’re celebrating that we lived another week and that it was worth it.”

I never reward myself with food. Lately my bribe and motivation to work and workout is an episode of Grand Hotel, but I needed chocolate. My mom said that after the birth of each of her children, she always craved chocolate. It might have been the severe anemia she had all her life. In any case, she never got the cake because she would’ve had to bake it and with a new baby, she never had the time. So in her honor, I got the cake, watched Lin-Manuel Miranda’s wonderful  UPenn commencement speech that my lovely agent Linda sent me, and I watched it while I had some máte and ate my cake, just a piece, mind you, that thing must be worth at least 10,000 calories. The thing is I hardly ever celebrate because there’s always something super important going on and the celebration can wait. So I ate my cake, celebrating that we made it to the end of the school year and soccer, my scholarship from SCBWI, the end of my 3rd semester and critical thesis, and life. I’m celebrating that I’m alive and that I still feel (I feel everything too much). Sometimes chocolate cake is the best remedy in the world. Here’s the link to Lin-Manuel’s speech, in case you need some encouragement too. And here’s the transcript. I printed it out to read every morning: