The happy place

I really wanted to write about pineapple and pineapples.

For my thirtieth birthday, we took a cruise ship. I was wearing my yellow polo shirt and drank Piña Colada — my favourite drink — through a straw.

With me were some of my favourite people,

my family.

Some of them,

they hurt me.

I am not yet able to tell the tale plainly.

I don’t understand enough.

It’s not the type of thing that has a clear timeline. Rather, it’s exactly like they were the pineapple in my fruit salad and I was (in this analogy) allergic.

It might have developed suddenly or over time, as these things do. At some point, I kept eating — the same way I always had. It left me with (metaphorical) blisters on my tongue, without me knowing why they were there.

Some time during the following years, I concluded that my tongue was supposed to be swollen. Like that was just the way of things.

Until I stopped thinking there was anything wrong with it to begin with. Even as it kept growing, were someone to ask what was up with my tongue, I wouldn’t have even understood the question.

Finally, the pineapple was too much — the allergy so intense that it almost suffocated me. I stood there in front of the mirror, having reached some final threshold, and realised:

• It’s not supposed to hurt like this to speak.

• Breathing shouldn’t be this hard.

• Most people don’t have tongues this swollen, with blisters all over them.

When it dawned on me that it was all from the pineapple — which I love so much — something broke inside of me.

It hurts.

Even though I know there are other fruits you could put in there instead, like oranges — small representations of the sun — it’s never going to be the same.

And physalis.

I am not sure whether I will ever be able to eat pineapple again. Realistically, I could probably eat it once a year. But is it worth it?

(It’s not)