My mom tells me my father was quiet. This is dissonant to me, considering the reason I didn’t speak to him between meeting him at sixteen and watching him die at eighteen was because he seemed to care more about telling me things—about himself, about the world, about me—than listening to or learning anything at all. He just talked, and made me feel like my thoughts didn’t matter to him. I didn’t want another stranger telling me what was right and wrong, and I didn’t know enough about fathers to want one of those either. But apparently he was, generally speaking, a very quiet man.
God knows the family that raised me was quiet. Christmas was just the five of us sitting in a room together in silence from the twenty-second to the twenty-seventh of December. Busy, very busy, but in the quiet kind of way: knitting, crocheting, reading, cooking, cleaning, watching football. Always doing something, rarely chatting.
So I don’t know where I get it. I just talk. I don’t see the point of having thoughts and not sharing them. How do you know you exist if others don’t witness your mind? And I’m loud. My voice rises with my excitement, sometimes it doesn’t come down, and I don’t know how else to be.
Like the version of my father I knew, I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut, to the point of inconvenience. Who knows how many people I’ve pushed away, just like he did to me. For a long time I saw it as a mark of restlessness and insecurity. If I were certain about myself I could be quiet, like the version of my dad everyone else knew and admired, like my peaceful family enjoying the warm Monterey winters.
And so I tried to silence myself. If I were smaller, that meant I was… wiser, somehow.
But I was wrong. Silence and certainty are not necessary to one another. I found people who are also loud, but also love to listen. And I found that version of myself as well. You can be both. I don’t have to be my father to be heard. I don’t need to be my grandparents to be considerate. I don’t have to be silent to be serene. I just need people who want to participate in my thoughts, who have thoughts that intrigue me. I can be, and am, loud and content at once.
In fact, it was worse. Much worse. Because I ate a caramel fudge piece. I didn’t mean to. But I did. I was afraid for my fillings. I was more afraid for my stomach.
It turned out kind of fine? Kind of?
For some reason it tasted delicious, but the sweet, strange aroma I breathed after was disgusting; and I felt sick most of the day. This was getting… worrisome.
Another night of early sleep actually did not safe me, because I had an unbearable appetite for candied everything. Apples, bananas, lychees, pears, melons, peaches, hazelnuts, almonds, macadamias… and everything else entirely inappropriate and coated in sugar.
When there were drinks with sugar rings in front of me, more syrup than anything else, I went home. Not sleeping, but searching the internet. Why do I crave sugary treats that badly.
And… there were a lot of weight loss advice And carbohydrate explanations. And… things along these lines.
I tried quite a few variants, but… the results stayed the same: weight loss advice or the reason is possibly a change in exercise or diet.
None of that happened.
I unhappily chewed on a weird caramel-chocolate-corn bar. It was tasty and disgusting and I crawled into bed. If it was not better next week, I would go to an actual doctor.
…
The next week was filled with sweets and misery. A lot of misery.
And a day before said week was over, Richard walked up to me, grabbed my shoulder, said ‘You look like crap and need to eat something other than sweets” and dragged me to an all you can eat buffet.
They had all different kinds of meat, they had sushi, they had fried things, they had pommes, rice two chocolate fountains, gummy bears, baked banana, all kinds of salads and fruits, sauces, vegetables, spices, they cooked in front of us…
We spend four hours there.
My stomach ached.
My knees were wobbly. Richard actually helped me into my flat, arm around my shoulder.
With a laugh, he let me fall on the bed.
Belt and button had already been undone.
I shimmied out of my pants.
Slowly. And placed my head on a pillow with a very heavy sigh.
Then I said: “…what the mother fucking frick frack horus bird shitting fuck is going on…”
