At the Kitchen Table
Does This Chai Make Me Look Fat?
An ode to an innocent beverage
Does this chai make me look fat?
No, it’s the coping. So much coping.
Coping with joblessness and hopelessness, insecurity in all of its forms.
Coping with pain, such pain, and lack of sleep.
Coping with the shit that comes to the forefront when you begin to create and say yes to creative flow.
Coping with the shit that comes to the forefront when you say yes to therapy.
What is it with the forefront anyway? The forefront is the worst.
Maybe it’s not the coping.
It’s all the goddamn happiness, that’s what it is.
Happy in love.
Happy in life.
Happy to be going against the grain.
Happy to follow the model, to play the numbers game.
Happy to speak up for myself.
If I am speaking up for myself, why is it so quiet all the time?
Maybe it’s neither the happiness nor the coping.
It’s the outside.
It’s the fall that is too hot.
It’s the medicine that doesn’t dull my aching face.
It’s the toilet paper that is somehow waterproof.
It’s the silence that is too quiet and the engines that are too loud.
It’s this goddamn chai that is making me look fat, not the pain of walking or the days and nights of eating to feel cozy (read: borderline okay).
Why does it have to be the chai?
The chai is cozy. The soup is cozy. The bread is cozy. The cookies are cozy.
They don’t take the pain away, but they are how I am trying to dull the disappointment I have in my temporary affliction.
Pain, like fear, causes a stress response. When I am stressed, I am critical of how I look. This is learned.
Despite the fact I know this response is not useful to me, I stare at my delicious fall chai with both sorrow and disdain.
Maybe it’s not the chai.
Chai, dear chai, it’s not your fault that I feel fat.
It’s not your fault that I’m enfattening.
It’s not your fault that in the moments when I need comfort the most, all I have for myself is a critical voice that says, “Yikes. You’ve put on a bit of weight.”
But I do have you.
Thank you for all you do. For the spice. For the taste of fall. For the endorphins that taste the tiniest bit like hope. And for sitting here next to me while I stew and question your intentions.
It’s good to know one of us isn’t judging.
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On Wine: Ways I Wine Tour Like a Bossb*itch
On Sassy Self-Pleasure: When I Say “It’s My Pleasure” I Don’t Really Mean It
On Sex & Sexuality: “Teenie” Gets My Hands Slapped