Going Forward

Eating Burger King in an empty kitchen for the fourth day in a row came with a bittersweet feeling that I would get to know well over the next decade. It felt like our parents were bribing us, distracting the children with fatty foods so we wouldn’t think about how everything we knew would be left behind. I was 8 then, the first time we moved country. I didn’t fully comprehend what it meant, but I understood that it would be a big change. I didn’t like change as a kid. It crowded my thoughts with worry. I wanted to run away, but worry is hard to run away from. So I sat there in silence, trying not to think about all the strange things I had heard about America.

I looked over at my brother, who back then still had the thickest glasses a 10-year-old has worn. He was busy removing the pickles from his burger with utmost focus. It seemed the distraction was working on him. Maybe it would work for me too. I sank my teeth into the bun to see if I could shun away the sinking feeling in my heart. I tried to let the sensation of savory and sweet wash over me, but the moving boxes and blank walls filling my periphery still felt like they were closing in on me. I closed my eyes and focused. The bun was soft, sweet, and oily. As I chewed it gave way for the meat paddy, earthy and umami. Another chew allowed the sweet and vinegary sauce to overload my tastebuds. A pickled jalapeno mixed in with cheap cheese sent a warm sting through my mouth. The retinal image of the bleak walls were being drowned out by the flavors.

‘Enjoying the whopper­­?’

I opened my eyes and saw my dad smiling at my concentrated attempts at escapism. I answered him with silent chewing.

The idea of moving was tough for me. My brother, always the rebel, didn’t seem too bothered by it, and my sister was too young to really understand it. My parents knew it was tough for me too. They tried everything to make me feel excited, or at least not as bad, but as far as I was concerned, the move was the end of my world. Anything they did was a consolation prize. ‘Change is natural’ My mom would say; ‘when one thing ends, another can begin’. This burger was one of defeat. A band aid on a flesh wound. I closed my eyes again.

As I chewed the food, my mind started to wander around our house, how it had looked before all the furniture had been packed down and shipped off to America. The kitchen smelling of coffee and bacon in the mornings. The old leather couch in the Livingroom worn by years of children playing on it. The boys’ bedroom where my brother and I would play in the day and tell each other stories at night. Every room filled with my mother’s potted plants. I never wanted to leave. I never wanted to grow up.

Eventually I swallowed the mouthful I had been working through. I sat with my eyes closed for a bit. I had placed my burger down, and to reach it for another bite I would have to open my eyes and return to reality’s bare walls. In blindness I patted my hand on the table. Maybe I could find a stray French fry to extend my stay.

Bingo.

The fry crunched as my jaw closed on it, like a firepit crackling in the backyard on summer nights, like the snow under my boots on the sledding hill in the winter, like rain hitting the terrace roof on a rainy day.

I opened my eyes to dip it in mayonnaise.

As I did the sinking feeling returned. I had forgotten how bare the kitchen walls were. I could feel it welling up inside me. I tried to reach for my fries, but there was nothing to do. Tears started forming in my eyes. I made an effort to keep it down and wipe them away, but my mother had spotted it.

‘Oh, what’s wrong sweetie?’

In a split second I was bawling. My dad swooped my me up and put me on his lap, and I curled up and wept into his shirt. The warm comfort of his embrace only furthered my tears.

My thoughts were swimming through everything I would be leaving behind. My school, my friends, the small treehouse in the garden, the trails through the nearby forest, the small mound where we buried our rabbits, the old garage I was too scared to walk through, the car park where we drew murals of chalk on. My best friend in the whole world. I cried harder.

‘There there, it’ll be alright’ my dad’s voice soothed.

After a little while my tears started to let up. My mom tried again, softly asking what had caused my sudden sadness. I voiced my concerns through a voice bubbling with tears and snot.

‘You’ll get a new school, and new friends. There will be new trails to explore, and a new carpark to draw in. And we can still call your friends here and send a letter to your old class.’

My head was still groggy from crying, and though I had been told this a hundred times I couldn’t quite focus on it. I reached out for a French fry and my mom pushed the carton over so I could reach. I slowly nibbled on it.

‘You know, fast food was invented in America’ my dad started. ‘I bet it tastes even better the way they make it over there.’

‘Really?’ I looked up.

‘Really. And I hear it’s all they eat. And for dessert they eat donuts and candy and put ice cream on pancakes that are as thick as your arm.’

I dipped another French fry and let it crunch slowly between my teeth. I tried to imagine how it was possible to make this taste even better. My tears started to slow. Maybe America wouldn’t be that bad. ‘When one thing ends, another can begin’. Maybe my mom was right. I remember my thoughts shifting in that moment, becoming more excited about where I was going. The feeling pushed my sorrow aside, and while it wasn’t gone, it was nice to have something outweighing it.

Sitting now by a burger king in the airport with the same bittersweet feeling, I try to recall what my mom told me. It’s hard to be excited for what’s to come when you don’t know what that is. The only thing keeping me in Seattle was a girl, and now that it’s over between us I’m not sure what’s next. Only that I need to move again. It’s almost become habit.

This burger tastes like our first date. Awkwardly trying to read each other while sitting by a shopping mall cinema, worrying about if it was weird that I ordered mayo for my fries like a damn European. I commented on it, and instantly thought it was weird to bring up. She said the best way to eat fries was dipped in chocolate milkshake. For the next two years we always ordered an extra milkshake, just to dip our fries in.

My sister will pick me up when my plane lands, and I’ll be home. I’ll stay with my parents for a while, while settling into the job and finding an apartment. There’ll be new people in my life, new trails to explore. I think this will hurt a while, but not forever.  ‘When one thing ends, another can begin’.