Xeno Hemlock

Gluttony brought me to where I am today. 

Every other night we’d dine out, my former group of friends and I. No special occasion. Nothing to celebrate. Nothing new to even talk about. We’d get together because eating was “fun”. Going to a new restaurant felt exciting. Trying a new cuisine meant you’re adventurous. Posting a photo of yourself with a food on Instagram to induce jealousy on other people made you a superstar. When all three had been exhausted, it all came back to “because eating was fun”.

I was fat then I became a fatass. As the days went by, I became ‘fatasser’ and, thankfully, through the divine intervention of the universe I didn’t became ‘fatassest’. I was in the middle of a company meeting when I felt something painful above my stomach. Dizziness came next. I knew I couldn’t hack it through the rest of the day so I excused myself from work. The walk from the office to the public commute was torture. I limped the entire way. The pain right above my stomach prevented me from walking straight.

My insecure self saw the people eyeing me as I walked like a hunchback and thought, “Holy guacamole! This is so embarrassing.” My scaredy-cat self worried about my future as the thought of home became stronger every minute. “Oh my god, Xeno you are going to die.” And my critical self mentally scolded myself for getting in that predicament. “You’re now paying for all those greasy and shit food you ate, you gluttonous dumbass.” But in retrospect, that was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

After many hospital tests (including a biopsy) and visits to doctors, I decided it was time for a lifestyle change. I dusted off and put to use my unused gym membership card which I had forgotten since I bought it a few years before. I started exercising and gradually adopted healthy and wise eating. Then (as stupid as it sounds) I got heartbroken at the gym pushing me to go into depression.

That’s when I turned to writing to deal with my sorrow and, in return, got more than what I expected. At first, it was something I couldn’t explain, that piece inside of me that began rekindling. Writing didn’t just help me cope with my heartbreak. It also started to fill a hollow part of my life I didn’t acknowledge before.

Putting my thoughts into words, sentences, and paragraphs gave me a kind of joy I never felt from anyone, anything, and anywhere. Learning what it felt like to be really living, I rediscovered my purpose in life.

Once my novel I Killed My Friends and It Thrilled Me was finished, I thanked all the burgers, pizzas, and fries as ludicrous as it sounded. Without them, I wouldn’t be here. Thank you, McDonald’s!

Kidding aside, I wouldn’t want to go back to that stage of my life. There’s nothing good and fun in being a glutton. Gluttony is a band aid to an undiagnosed hollowness in one’s life. By surrendering more to it, one foregoes treating the problem. Gluttony is not an answer, it’s a problem. It robs us from living a purposeful life. If you leave it undiagnosed for too long, it results in the opposite of life: death.

to be continued…

“Oh, pity the poor glutton
Whose troubles all begin
In struggling on and on to turn
What’s out into what’s in.”

Walter de la Mare

Photo by Daria Sannikova from Pexels.