Goodbye, Vitamin

by Rachel Khong

Like trying to tuck an elephant into pants.

“You’re the doctor,” I said. “What’s your prescription?” Try not to feel too shitty, was her main piece of advice. Stop, always, at 2.5 drinks. Make a list of good things—however small.

long time ago I stopped wondering why there were so many crazy people. What surprises me now is that there are so many sane ones.

In an ancient National Geographic I find in the bathroom magazine stack, I read that jellyfish synthesize a special protein that helps with dementia. When elderly people are given jellyfish to eat twice a week, they are less likely to develop dementia or other age-related diseases.

What imperfect carriers of love we are, and what imperfect givers. That the reasons we can care for one another can have nothing to do with the person cared for. That it has only to do with who we were around that person—what we felt about that person.

What I want to know is what counted for something and what counted not at all. Now I feel like a shit for spending that time—that’s the word it’s convention to use: spending—on what turns out not to matter, and neglecting the things that did, and do.

Sharing things is how things get started, and not sharing things is how they end.

I like also that having a terrible day pretty much guarantees that the next day will be much, much better.

In a matter of days, Lung had said, it can go from being manageable to scary.

Everybody everywhere, I think, is always talking about the same shitty thing.

all of a sudden I hated that word, waste; wished it didn’t exist; wished I’d been braver on so many long-gone occasions; wished things were not as they were.

You cast a look of concern at the colander of cauliflower. “No more crucified vegetables,” you said. “But they died for you, Dad.”

You would not believe the vastness of literature and debate over wet versus dry brine, stuffed versus unstuffed, breast-side up or down.