Astronaut Food

I've been thinking about that concept lately - a concept taken from the novel You Don't Love Me Yet by Jonathan Lethem.

It's not about actual food, either - although considerable parts of this blog deal with the consumption and non-consumption of food, today's post doesn't, not exclusively.

I'll try to sum up the meaning behind "Astronaut Food" for anyone who hasn't read the novel - Astronaut Food, as named for the packed-up long-lasting food provisions that spacefarers take with them, is

... someone you're always thinking you might get with, but deep down know that you never will.
... someone you keep on your list of possibilities, as a back up, just so you don't have to feel there are no possibilities at all.
... someone with whom the stakes are blissfully low; a friend who might be more than a friend, but in the end is really just that - a friend.
... someone, with the idea of whom you entertain yourself, despite knowing essentially that if anything was ever to happen between the two of you, it would have happened already.

M. has always been my Astronaut Food.
I'm not sure if I am his as well, I'm suspecting that I might be.

There seemed to be a mutual understanding between us all the time, that we were thinking about each other within similar terms.

This understanding might have been that "things were developing in a certain direction", slowly but surely - or it might have simply been that we were to be the others' Astronaut Food forever more.
I was never quite sure.

Now though, I am not even sure about the Astronaut Food part anymore.

Now, that I am spinning ever more out of control, that my academic progress has been stalled in the wake of my various psychological disabilities - I'm not sure that he still sees me that way, as even remotely desirable, when the facade of a happyfunctioninghealthysuccessful person is slipping further out of reach.

By which I am not insinuating he only cares about those things, about a person being "normal, functioning, successful".
It is just that - he is so goddamn clearly one of those people, the normalhappyfunctioninghealthysuccessfull kind.

It's not that he doesn't have issues, hidden depths in which problematic thought patterns lurk.
I believe everyone does, and I do happen to know a little about his.

Still, he apparently deals with them, in an ever so commendable and effortlessly healthy way.

He is the picture perfect image of a strong, compassionate, successful and grounded individual, incredibly kind and helpful towards others, someone who follows his passions and takes care of things actively, who manages to accommodate for his hobbies amongst excelling in the pursuit of his career, nauseatingly well-grounded really, totally down-to-earth.

And you can't even hate him for it in your bottomless envy, he's just the most endearing and disarming kind of "healthyfunctioningnormal" there could possibly be, at least to me.

Being in his presence makes me want to straighten up and better myself, to be healthy and sane - yet it makes me feel impossibly humbled too, like I could never be good enough, that in my broken state I am not worthy of his friendship, his compassion, his concern.

He's like the bigger brother I never had, and at the same time I would really like to be his Astronaut Food.

... once again I'm not sure where I'm going with this, except perhaps to say that I am rambling, and that You Don't Love Me Yet is an excellent novel, that I recommend it.

It has some bits and pieces interesting in the light of thinness and superficiality, too - some rather poetic pieces which I am going to quote while sincerely hoping I am not committing any severe from of copy right infringement:

"I do think he looks a little fat onstage with the rest of us. I guess I'm not supposed to say that."
"He's not fat, he's just a grown-up. We're the ones who look strange. We're anorexic, we're ghosts, we're tinder."
"I thought we looked pretty good."

"You know what I love most about you?" she asked.
"What?"
"The way the veins in your forearms stick out. And the ridge of muscle that runs along your waist. I love that you're skinny."
"That's superficial, Lucinda."
"You can't be deep without a surface."