Banana French Toast

I’m sure I’m not the first amateur philosopher to contemplate the speed of time. It’s crazy how fast time can pass and how slow it can drag on.

I thought about this as I went to my favorite breakfast place with my best friend this morning. The restaurant, or more diner, is a little hole in the wall, barely four tables squeezed into the back, an itsy bitsy bathroom hidden in the kitchen. We both order the same thing every time, my order omitting the dairy from the french toast. As we ordered this morning, the waitress grinned at us, took the menus, and genuinely welcomed us back.

My friend and I laughed at this, bemused that they had remembered our faces and our chronic orders. And I began to think about the different times I had been there last year.

There was a time when I was very sick last year that I was fed up with eating in my room and not being able to do anything. So I readied myself with underwear in my bag and was prepared to have an accident in public, if only I could be out in public amongst the living. I ate where I wanted to eat, did what I wanted to do. Now, this wasn’t necessarily the smartest thing to do, but I did it anyway. I can recall sitting at the breakfast place and running to the bathroom every few minutes, almost completely depleting the toilet paper supply for the whole place. Another time, my GI called me as I sat there with my hot french toast. I had to come in to get a test, and so after breakfast my friend and I proceeded to the hospital.

The last time I’d been was with my family before they took me home for summer break. And you feel like you always feel before summer break: relieved that the year is over, excited, older, and on the verge of something different. Only, I thought that the something different was my new medication and not the impending surgery that I would soon face.

Throughout my medically-induced food drought this summer, I dreamt of the french toast that I would eat, only wanting to be healthy enough to sit with my friend, eating our favorites, and laughing. At times during the summer, it seemed as though I would never get there, but it still kept me going.

Even though it took us almost two months to go and have breakfast there this semester, hearing ‘welcome back’ seemed like the best way to be officially and fully inducted back to Boston for another year of school. I am finally back.

When I finished the amazing french toast and looked up at my friend, with her polished-off plate, I smiled, knowing that I would be back here throughout the year, ostomy on my abdomen and health on my side.

Jennie