Toasted marshmallows and a life lesson

If you thought an event slipped by us yesterday, you are right:  National Toasted Marshmallow Day rolled right past without so much as a wave of a wooden skewer.

In honor of this missed momentous occasion, I thought I would share a story from our past of a dark summer’s night and the lesson I have gleaned years later.

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We have always loved campfires.

There is just something about sitting around them, chatting and laughing and enjoying each other’s company that is so relaxing, and is just made all the sweeter by toasting marshmallows.

One night, when our girls were pre-teens, they joined some of the family for a summer evening get together. After receiving their own freshly whittled branch and access to the bag of marshmallows, they secured their sugary confections on the end, and proceeded to roast away.

Now, if you have ever had the pleasure of this pastime, you are aware that everyone is a connoisseur when it comes to cooking a marshmallow, and spends years fine-tuning their methods to yield the perfect taste and texture.

One child may wait patiently, their precious sweet a safe distance from the overwhelming heat, rotating the marshmallow for many long minutes while it toasts to a perfect shade of caramel, allowing the shell to slide deliciously off the soft, warm core for a delightfully toothsome treat.

Another child sticks the marshmallow almost directly into the glowing embers, and watches as the puff quickly catches fire, and then holds it up, waiting for the flame to burn out and the remains to cool,  leaving a deep, black, charred, chunk of crispy, crunchy goodness.

OK. You got me. I made that last part up about crispy crunchy goodness.

I just can’t get excited about eating carbon, but I have family members that do, and they claim it is the BEST and ONLY way to go. Me, I am more of the patient, wait ’til it is that soft golden brown with the gooey center kind of camper.

Our youngest daughter was and still is a char-broil girl.

After pulling her flaming marshmallow out of the fire, she slowly twirled the remains, gently blowing on it, waiting for the last orange flicker to go out, when suddenly it lost its lease on life and -plop!-dropped directly onto her bare knee.

The hot mass stuck immediately to her skin, and Leslie’s instinctive reaction was to try to wipe off what she described as molten lava, but that only spread the pain around. Fortunately, when all was said and done, the burn healed well, but not without some pain.

So what was the lesson to be learned here?

Well, other than the obvious of “don’t let children set their marshmallows on fire and hold them over their exposed skin.”

I realized that bad habits are a lot like the hot-melt type goo that fell on Leslie’s leg. They stick with us and figuratively burn us by keeping us from moving forward with healthy behaviors.

If we allow a habit to stick around, like glue it will collect other grit and grime, ie, more bad habits, and just make life more uncomfortable and much harder than it has to be, because we are always working around it.

Finally, it will leave a mark.

Over time we can make the effort to erase the blemish, to eradicate the habit once and for all, but ultimately it is up to us how long we allow our bad habits to stick around and continue to be the burning nuisances they are.

Comment: What habit continues to stick to you like a sticky, toasted marshmallow?

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