One Thanksgiving, I found myself struggling with low self-esteem, battling my inner critic, and feeling overwhelmed. More than anything, I wanted to preserve my relationship with my nearly adult daughter. She was racing full speed ahead into adulthood, where it seemed like she already had all the answers at her fingertips.

I, on the other hand, felt irrelevant. My ADHD brain kept tripping me up as I tried to plan. I was overwhelmed by decisions—what recipe should I bring to my sister’s Thanksgiving meal? There would be so many people! My nieces and nephews were now adults with kids of their own, and extended family from my brother-in-law’s side would be there too. Add in some friends who had no family to spend the day with, and it was shaping up to be the ultimate family gathering. The weight of that togetherness felt almost unbearable.

And, of course, all of this triggered my ADHD responses. Task initiation? Nonexistent. Procrastination took over, and disorganization reigned. I couldn’t find any of my cherished, food-stained recipes. The flexibility needed to handle changing plans had vanished. Prioritization was nowhere to be found, and I simply couldn’t figure out where to begin.

Naturally, my inner critic chimed in, loud and clear: “You’re not enough. You should have it together by now. After all, you’re an adult with almost adult kids.”

Amidst all this chaos, my daughter was on a pie-baking spree. So, this is what our mother-daughter ADHD duo decided to do: We embraced the chaos and made every pie we could dream of. Chocolate, cherry, pecan, pumpkin, apple, even mincemeat! My daughter’s artistic flair shone through as she created intricate lattice crusts adorned with leaf cutouts and beautiful autumn motifs. And we didn’t stop at one or two pies. No, we made a dozen pies! Far more than we could possibly eat or even carry. In the back of my mind, I recall that some pies eventually went to waste.

But when I look back, what stands out most are my character strengths. I see love—how I cherished that pie-making time with my daughter, letting the flour-dusted mess set the stage for this wonderful memory. I see teamwork—allowing my almost-grown daughter to take the lead, happily being part of her creative team as we rolled out crust after crust. And I see kindness—letting it guide me as I embraced the growing mess in our kitchen, knowing that this was about more than just pies.

Today, my daughter is a successful adult, wife, and mom. And we still laugh about that Thanksgiving when we dominated the dessert table with our dozen pies. Was it overkill? Excessive? Absolutely. But it was also full of love, fun, and—yes—a bit of beautiful mess.