I can't eat.

That's the gist of it.

I can't eat.

I guess to people who haven't grown up the way I have, it sounds absurd.

So much of our lives revolve around eating.

Breakfast, lunch, dinner.

It's a social ritual and a contract.

Without it, we lose a core pillar of being human.

But I can't eat. I can't be a part of that.

It's complicated. be a part of that.

It's complicated.

I grew up to a single mother with a minimum wage.

How she managed to keep a sickly kid alive through all of that is beyond me, and I don't mean sickly as in getting nasty colds or ear infections.

I mean sick with the big S.

For as long as I can remember, I could never eat solid food. Some doctors called it inoperable acalasia, but my mom called it royal throat.

Just like the kings and queens of old, she used to say.

They were so used to having servants feed them that they stopped eating for themselves.

It was a nice way for her to make it sound like I was special rather than cursed.

The main problem is that I can't swallow, right?

So instead I'd have to puree my food and

slide it down my throat with a thick plastic tube.

You can't really taste anything.

...