After the meal, Dad took me aside.
Why did you do that?
I was only trying to help you!
The Skinny: A Memoir, by Jonathan Wells(Ze Books, August 17, 2021). Reprinted with permission from ZE Books.
yo, dont give a shot to help me any more, Dad.
I dont want it.
I want to figure it out for myself.
Any father would do what I did.
You cant control instincts.
Wait until you have kids and youre a father.
He spoke sincerely but his warning was meaningless.
I barely thought of myself as an adult, let alone understanding what it meant to be a father.
Dad, if I was in pain I could understand your taking me to the doctor.
But I was never in any physical pain.
You manufactured this whole diagnosis.
Youve been trying to fix me and improve me since I was eleven.
You have to stop.
And youre forgetting one very important thing.
This is my body, not yours.
We arent the same person and besides, theres nothing wrong with it.
It is what it is.
And there never was anything wrong with it.
You got carried away.
You should have fixed yourself, not me.
The words felt like they were coming from someone elses mouth.
But we both knew that this time I wouldnt.
His beard turned darker where his cheeks creased.
I had never seen him so sad, so chastened.
I felt an empathy for him that I had never felt before.
There was never any confusion between my body and yours, Dad pressed back.
You needed a push forward toward growth.
Toward energy and structure.
You needed to learn what hustle was.
That is what a father is supposed to teach.
Why are you so ungenerous?
Is it so difficult for you to accept my help?
Doesnt it depend on the form it takes?
Pushing me to do what I wasnt ready for is a strange form of help.
She had a specific purpose.
She was an agent.
An agent to cure me of exactly what Im not sure.
Couldnt you have given me the chance to cure myself?
What was the rush?
Couldnt it have waited until I was ready?
I did what any father would have done.
Did your father do for you what you did for me?
I dont want to talk about this any more.
This conversation is over.
Id just like to ask you to reflect on it some more when youre not so angry.
Try and see it from my perspective.
If you’re able to, I think youll feel differently about it.
I was certainly not trying to hurt you.
I did my job.
Now do yours and grow up already!
He had never been so pleading andrashat the same time.
For a minute, I was frozen in place after he left the room.
Maybe he was right.
I was ready to leave my home behind me: its comforts as much as its anguish.
Excerpted fromThe Skinny: A Memoir, by Jonathan Wells(Ze Books, August 17, 2021).
Reprinted with permission from Ze Books.
