Dating when dinner is the date
First dates built around food, with a tiny appetite. How I pick the place, what I order, when the medication comes up, and the man who ordered two desserts.
The Quiet Part
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The 2 am fridge standoff
Standing in the fridge light at 2 am without hunger. What that moment is usually about, what I do instead of eating the rice, and why I stopped grading it.
Grocery shopping for a tiny appetite without wasting half of it
How I shop for an appetite the size of a polite houseguest: nine recipes instead of seven days, small protein packs, patient produce, and the freezer aisle.
The same person in a smaller chair
Being treated differently, the discomfort of being seen, and the parts that didn't change at all. Not a transformation story. A continuity story.
The folder that keeps GLP-1 paperwork from eating my evenings
One folder, paper or digital. What goes in it, the two-minute habit after every pharmacy call, and the coverage dispute it turned from four evenings into forty minutes.
Nobody claps for maintenance
The attention stops when the visible change stops. On the loneliness of month fourteen, finding two people who get it, and marking progress nobody else can see.
The wedding, the buffet, and the plate I didn’t finish
A long reception, a buffet line, a seat next to a woman named Carol who watched my plate, three bites of cake, and an hour on the dance floor.
What the quiet gave me back
An essay on the hours and attention that returned when food stopped taking up so much of my head, and the strange guilt of enjoying them.
Breakfast when you’re not hungry until noon
My appetite sleeps in now. What I eat standing at the counter, the cottage cheese era, the egg that waits, and the second breakfast that is really the first.
Boundaries for people with opinions about your body
The aunt, the coworker, the gym acquaintance. You don't owe anyone the details. Plain scripts for the medication question and the person who won't drop it.
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