Fatty: A Diary of Starting Over: Things No One Tells You

Saturday, 1 February

Really, and all of this could have gone completely differently…

I could have stayed home with a book, like I usually do. It was still light, but sunset was probably in an hour. Suddenly, I decided to go for a walk. Why? I had one hour for walking at most, as after the sun goes down, the path to my house gets dark — there are no street lights. The day was gloomy already with only a few lazy passers-by. So the walking didn’t make much sense.

On the other hand, staying at home and reading yet another book, I would not meet any passers-by, lazy or lively. Real ones, I mean. The fantasy passers-by I can meet any time — my imagination works miracles. In all senses of the word.

By the time I reached the central square, the rain started pouring. A few people who were outside rushed to the nearest inside they found — even though it wasn’t especially cold or even that heavy. Probably because rain is unusual for winter, or maybe because this storm wasn’t forecast.

I was no exception. I ran into the supermarket, and stood by the window, watching the square, which moments ago had been full of movement and noise, grow empty. Even the pigeons, who usually crowded the square, flew away. The supermarket itself was moderately busy; they had some radio station on, which was now playing advertisements really loudly. I figured, no matter the sound volume, I’m not going to buy some toothpaste because of it — I have a perfectly good one at home.

After a minute or two, the rain almost stopped and a few people left their hiding places. I was contemplating whether I should continue my walk, as the count of passers-by wasn’t sufficient for my average, or rather go back home, even if I didn’t get that wet.

A few minutes passed while I was thinking, solving the huge task of choosing between two equally unappealing options, and coming up with a third, more appealing one — should I just go to the supermarket and buy something nice for dinner, since the fridge was probably empty (I hadn’t thought to check it, which is exactly the thing my mother cites as evidence of my general incompetence) — when the rain suddenly started pouring harder.

Yup, the first two options are now out of the window. Would I go with the third one? Just before turning to pick up a shopping bag, I thought how different my options are from the ones I had while living my past life in the capital — typical challenges of a Saturday would be: should I go to an opera premiere with my friend, since she got invitations for free, or rather attend a contemporary dance performance by myself because none of my close friends shared this passion, or should I go as a plus-one to a dinner, party, or strange meeting, but in a very chic place, with my fiancé. Life was so different then.

Before I could get to the stacked shopping bags, I saw a shopper very emotionally discussing the fact that a discount of two per cent wasn’t added to his grocery purchase, to which the shop assistant girl answered that she was new here, so she didn’t know the procedure; besides, that would only be one cent, since one and two-cent coins have been withdrawn from circulation, to which an elderly man said it didn’t matter the size, it’s a matter of principle. I thought, yeah, that’s precisely how principle works: you don’t get any real profit, and you spend your time defending imaginary honour. Should I also go to complain to this girl, why there are no shopping bags near the entrance, where they should be, and I need to balance around other shoppers finding abandoned ones inside the shop, to which she would probably answer, it’s because of Saturday — the busiest day in our supermarket, she did what she could to nudge them out with her loudest possible radio advertisements.

Just as I was about to finally grab a lonely shopping bag, abandoned cruelly between shelves, I heard a song playing on the radio. It was some old Italian song, probably from a film. A man with a strong, deep voice was singing something about the only important thing being that you are with me, something about mist swallowing summer. It sounded unbelievably beautiful and deeply romantic.

Somehow this beautiful verse and the whole music behind it moved me to tears, and images instantly started appearing in my mind. Images of autumn. Of fog erasing summer. Of life passing quietly.

I started thinking about my own life, and how exactly I had ended up here. Not in the supermarket, obviously. There I went on my feet. In this small coastal town, I mean. Assessing my life now in general, while standing inside the only supermarket in the small town, looking through empty shelves after Saturday’s shopping fever.

I have to admit that my life was not bad at all. I liked my work at the local museum, even if it was not that significant historian’s work, where I would make some remarkable discovery, where, say, the town’s founding date would be pushed back a few centuries, as I was imagining when I read the advertisement for this position. I liked my colleague Diana, even if she was so keen to follow and keener to impose all the local rules and regulations. I genuinely liked the history of the town and all the strange little artefacts we kept in the museum, even if some of them were just old rusty fish cans from the 1950s. During winter we barely had any visitors, but Diana kept reassuring me: ‘Just wait for summer. The doors will never close.’

My days followed a very stable rhythm. Work. Home. At home I would light the stove, try to keep at least some minimal order in the old rented house, occasionally fixing small things so the whole place would not completely fall apart. After that I did what I had always loved since childhood — I read. Quite often I went for shorter walks in town, to buy food at the supermarket, for new books to the local library (unfortunately with a very limited stock) or the book house for free books — surprisingly, this one would occasionally turn up real miracles of books that the local library hadn’t. The library mostly runs to volumes of popular history — too simple for someone with a history master’s — and to romance novels — too complicated for me as someone with absolutely no romantic inclination. These walks were also an opportunity for me to see people.

Occasionally on weekends I went for a walk to the seaside. But really seldom, as there were a few kilometres walk and the weather was often very uninviting. These walks were also an opportunity for me to see animals.

After a while, even that started feeling… familiar. Predictable. Still, life did not feel exactly boring. Just… very still. Like one of those old still lives. Carefully arranged, unmoving, and somehow slightly suffocating. Especially in December and January, when you go to work in darkness and return home in darkness, and begin to suspect that sunspots have suddenly grown out of control without anyone noticing, or that some kind of alien invasion preparations are quietly blocking the sunlight.

Still listening to the song, I remembered Italy. I remembered the narrow cobbled streets. The small scooters everywhere. The smell of coffee. The emotional way Italians spoke, as if even ordinary life itself mattered deeply. Their day-to-day life always seemed more alive than my own. More real.

I would not say I consciously decided anything. It was more like a feeling. A growing feeling that I wanted something different. Not because my life was broken or collapsing or going off the rails. On the contrary — it was extremely on the rails. Maybe too much. Perhaps that was exactly the problem — I simply wanted to feel more alive. To feel more present inside my own life somehow.

I wandered through the supermarket without really knowing what exactly I was looking for or how a supermarket could possibly help me change anything in my life. I just walked between the shelves. Eventually I arrived at my favourite section — the small bookshelf corner. For a moment I thought: maybe I should buy some important book. Some beautiful or meaningful novel that would somehow challenge my thinking, or enlighten me. But then I immediately rejected the idea.

No.

I always did that. I always bought books. Beautiful books. Important books. Strange books. Whatever was missing in my life clearly could not be solved by simply reading another one.

So instead I continued browsing absent-mindedly. Next to the bookshelves there was the stationery section with notebooks, school supplies, pencils, pens, markers, coloured paper, and all sorts of similar things. Suddenly my attention stopped on something.

It looked almost like a book.

A thick hardcover notebook standing among ordinary school supplies. I instinctively walked closer. On the cover it simply said: ‘The Diary’. I picked it up immediately. The cover itself was unbelievably beautiful. Decorated with intricate ornaments and layered colours, something between arabesques and mandalas. Slightly Middle Eastern, perhaps. Or maybe simply vintage. But whatever it was, it instantly appealed to me.

And then suddenly the thought came to me: Exactly. That’s it. I’ll start a diary. Because I had always loved reading books, but I had never truly written anything myself. The idea felt strangely liberating. Because a diary was different from a real book. If you write a novel, a detective story, or a romance, you must follow rules, genre expectations. Structure. Logic. But a diary… A diary simply follows life itself. You can write whatever you truly think. Whatever you feel. Whatever happens to you. Whatever feels important. Without filters. Without pretending. Without needing to fit into some literary form.

Yes. That was what would be different! My life, which until now was mostly documented by the accidental accounts of others, now will be documented by me the way I want.

So with complete determination, I bought the diary.

When I was leaving the supermarket, there was a man of completely inexplicable age and extremely messy exterior — with a strong odour suggesting a devoted relationship with spirits — sitting near the entrance: ‘Oh, miss from the museum! How are you today?’ he shouted so loudly upon seeing me that a few other passers-by turned around, but not to look at him as he was — my colleague Diana explained to me early on — a well-known character. Public attention turned toward checking: who is this miss from the museum? Lover of spirits too?

I stood thinking of the right answer to settle him quickly so the passers-by could get back to the business of passing by, whatever the destination.

‘Do you have a kind heart, or are you cold like everybody else?’ he continued in the absence of my answer.

I was already about to begin explaining that the answer might be entirely speculative, requiring us first to define what qualifies as a cold heart, and to establish who exactly counts as everybody — the totality of people living in this town, or the whole planet, or universe — but he obviously was not in a philosophical mood and cut straight to the point: ‘Will you help me?’

Already suspecting what was coming, I said, ‘Of course. Do you need me to buy you some food?’

‘What food?’ he answered with indignation. ‘Buy me beer.’

‘No, sorry. I’ll buy you something to eat if you want, but beer — no, it’s impossible.’ I tried to be as firm as possible.

He sighed, ‘Oh, at least give me some money. Just a few coins.’

‘No, sorry. I don’t support this kind of begging,’ I said, turning to leave, or, more precisely, to run away as fast as possible.

But I could still hear him shouting after me: ‘How come your smile shines beautifully like the sun, but your heart is as hard as stone?’

I thought about his last words — was it accidental? Did he know my name? Because Saulė means sun in my language. Then suddenly the memory just popped out. One day, when I was in the first year of primary school, coming home and being very upset, my dad asked: ‘Knipsy, what’s the matter?’

I told him, well, how come all the girls have normal names? We have two Emilias, Violeta, Karolina, Lina, Rasa — everyone has normal, nice names. Why do I have to be Saulė? It doesn’t sound like a name at all. Besides, it should be short, as it only has two syllables, but it sounds twice that. How come I never got a normal name — only a weird one?

Dad said, ‘But come on, look at the meaning. Saulė is the sun. The sun shines equally to everyone. Without it, nothing would grow. Without it, there would be no day. The sun is the most magical thing. Without it, all life is gone,’ and so on in that vein. ‘So we wanted to give you this name to make you feel like this wonderful, magical person.’

My mother cut in from the pile of homework’s she was correcting: ‘What are you talking about? I gave her this name because it was selected as the most beautiful name in that month’s magazine. Had I known that next month it would be Emilija, I would have waited.’

Yes, very much my mother — always wanting what is best for her daughter, and in return demanding only perfection from me.

Near my home I also thought that it was probably the first time any man had paid me a compliment in this town. Yes, I’ve had lots of compliments from my colleague, my neighbour and even the head of the culture department — though hers are mostly empty flattery deployed to get things done — but these are all women. No matter how much I wanted to think his compliment was just as manipulative, aimed at getting his fix, but having in mind he said it after I refused the deal, I could only conclude the intention was selfless.

Once home, I realised buying the diary was the easy part. The difficult part begins afterward, when I actually have to write something in it. Well, it’s a challenge. Would it have been better to buy some colouring book instead? But I knew from Diana well that you can’t get a colouring book for adults in this town, as any activity like that is only for kids.

Okay, let’s try a diary. I’ll try to write every day. Something that happens. As mostly nothing happens, at least some thoughts, ideas about life, observations, conclusions. Usually, I have many.

Today was eventful — I went for a walk, had rain, and even got my first compliment from a local man. Granted, this man is a spirits-lover.

Some people start writing diaries because they want to preserve memories. Some want to leave something after themselves. I started mine completely by accident.

Sunday, 2 February

Today the weather was bad. I didn’t go for a walk. Instead, I had my coffee, and sat near the fire with a book — my usual Sunday. But the book was somewhat boring, and I slowly started drifting, and thinking again about my own life.

About how unexpectedly I had ended up in this town at all. Especially about how I had found my apartment. During my first week in town, I stayed at the local hostel for a ‘special price’. Obviously it could not last long — that ‘special price’ required most of my salary. I wanted my own space — my own bathroom, my own kitchen, and no backpackers wandering around the corridors at night.

Naturally, Diana decided to solve the problem her way. One day she invited some man to the museum. He looked completely out of place with his sportswear and loud attitude. He talked constantly. Absolutely constantly. Soon I realised that bragging was one of his greatest passions in life.

While standing in the museum among old artefacts and fishing equipment, he briefly questioned their worth, and upon finding it was not that much, compared it to the cost of a museum ticket — which he did not pay, being the special guest — and concluded it was way more worth visiting a hardware store. The exhibits there cost way more, and you don’t pay to enter, so you get a higher profit margin. Then he proudly explained how successfully he had bought several apartments in different towns and rented most of them out during the summer season. The apartment, he admitted not so proudly, needed an enormous renovation. But because the family had been in a hurry, Mr Egis had ended up with a fantastic bargain: a two-room apartment near the forest for the price of one room.

Of course, I immediately asked whether he would consider renting it out at least for the winter. I thought to myself — at the rate that the hostel is draining my salary, soon I’ll have to make a deal with my spirits-lover friend. All the food donations he gets, he gives to me in exchange for a free museum visit. But I was unconvinced he’d fancy that.

We went there right away, less than a fifteen-minute walk. As we left the street following a small path to the forest, I was getting slightly worried, as Mr Egis had something of a crime-boy image. Forest, away from people, and I’m half his size. But then I thought, he knows I’m working in the museum, so for money he surely wouldn’t bother. For other criminal intentions, male ones, he seems to be interested in some popular, enhanced-beauty, bright-colour-extreme-short-clothes-wearing blond bombshell, and not a vintage and book-maniac historian, so I was in no danger.