Getting Over Cream Biscuits
Unanticipated but okay.
A few years ago, when I was living away from home for the first time, a friend shared the most terrible news of her life. One of her family members had fallen severely ill, and long-run treatments were in order for the future. When she announced the news and broke into tears, we (roommates) huddled around her and attempted to console her. She cried while narrating heart-warming stories about the family member and all the while hoping for a fast recovery.
We listened, remarked, and stroked her hair until she felt more hopeful. Eventually, I got up and went into my room to grab the box of my favorite cream biscuits. Others were still sitting beside her when I re-entered the room and offered the biscuits to my friend. Wiping the remaining tears from her tiny face, she looked at the biscuits and let out a soft chuckle. Following suit, everyone laughed a little, and the room reverberated with slightly lighter energy. It was a running joke in the apartment that if cream biscuits were around, I could feel better about anything. So, I tried to transfer the biscuits’ pleasantness to another human.
I offered biscuits because sometimes it is hard to tell the right things, even when you’re mostly listening. And also when you’re bad at communication, and your mother tongue is different from other people around. But mainly, it is the former reason. So, cream biscuits had become my way of offering consolement and support. Privately, it was also my way of compensating for the absence of home and homemade delicacies and the presence of horrible hostel food. Cream biscuits, away from home, had retained the sweetness in my life in its own way.
A few years later, when I was again living away from home, choco-filled cream cookies became a regularity of my life. I always made sure that I had them in my small cupboard. I relished each cream-filled bite while nudging my roommate to try on the remaining ones. The roommate loved them too, and it had become an informal tradition always to buy and share cream biscuits. Like they had become gestures of support and consolement, they had also started to embody my likeness for people. I enjoyed talking over soft creams and crunchy biscuits with my dear ones.
Although these biscuits seemed to accompany me through difficult and pleasant conversations forever, times changed, and I eventually stopped treating them as gestures of support or likeness. Even my craving for cream biscuits died down slowly. I didn’t realize this until I went home recently and saw my sibling munching the biscuits, the same as in childhood. Seeing that I had little to no interest in accompanying him to finish the pack, I felt slightly taken aback and nostalgic.
There was also the surprise of being unable to point out when I stopped buying and eating biscuits. I felt betrayed by my brain because, as far as I could remember, the biscuits had always been gratifying. It seemed the last memory had been hiding in my brain, determined not to be seen as if they were upset and angry with me for not noticing cream biscuits’ departure from my life. I thought about how I had forgotten the creamy delights but couldn’t figure out a reason.
As an ode to the poignant old memories, I grabbed the pack placed in front of my sibling and took out the last chocolatey bite. I ate it and immediately rejoiced because the biscuit and the cream tasted as delicious as ever. But, uncharacteristically, I couldn’t bring myself to eat more. I was surprised again while still wondering about the downfall of biscuits. I finally concluded that I had seriously gotten over them and then moved on to thinking about why it bothered me that I had moved on.
Was it because they had been a great source of support and enjoyment when I was away from home? Was it because they helped me communicate better through sweet gestures? Was it because I thought they’d remain in my life forever? Or was it simply because they were delectable, and why on earth couldn’t I want them more?
The unanticipated deletion of cream biscuits perhaps made me feel slightly ungrateful. How can I stop eating them, given their long-standing evidence of sweetness? And it’s not like I had become hyper-health conscious and given up on sweets entirely. Ice-creams and cakes were still irresistible. Perhaps they were more than enough now? Maybe I didn’t need support in communication anymore? But then my mind said, NO, I can still fumble through a conversation easily. And then, amid random thought clouds, came a sharp lightening, spreading eerily across the whole canvas.
I silently mused; perhaps it was acceptance? Maybe I wanted to continue my life as I was, with or without any eatable gestures. Perhaps I wanted to rely on myself more while using the gestures gratefully. I wanted to see how I could handle a situation without wondering how spectacularly I would fail. Wait, I’ll still worry about failure, but maybe it’s not that much now? Well, perhaps cream biscuits had been such an essential part of the difficult parts of my life that depending upon them represented a lack of progress.
Possibly, I was just grateful for the past but didn’t want to be in the past now. Probably, I have not only moved on from biscuits but also in life, and turning back or associating with some specific things might seem like a step back. And just like this, don’t we get over people as well, despite their lovely presence in our lives? Isn’t it normal but sometimes inexplicable how some people aren’t as important as they were before? Without any conflict or distance. Maybe this is like that.
Or Maybe…
I simply don’t like cream biscuits as much as I wanted them before, and I have wasted a good few minutes pondering how getting over them relates to life. Although, I still wonder how many more things won’t matter as much through years down the line. I wish I don’t ever get over ice cream. Rest everything will be fine, I guess.
