Previously: Shevi and Gitty find the school melava malka harder than they thought.
* * * * *
My newly discovered euphoria was nowhere to be found as I trudged into Mrs. Rich’s office that Monday. Things had been going so well until the school melave malka. After fighting an internal battle that felt like World War III and waging an awful war with myself, I had sat down at the table virtuously with a small cup of fruit compote from the dessert table. But watching everyone else dig into their loaded bagels with relish and wiping the thick, velvety cream cheese and sticky glaze from the wide variety of pastries from their fingers over and over proved to be too much for me. After the first activity, when Gitty went to the bathroom, I rushed over to the tables. The selection was more sparse, now that everyone had helped themselves. It didn’t stop me. I grabbed a bagel, a soft, white, fresh bagel. and quickly heaped on a thick layer of garlic cream cheese. Hurriedly I added a mountain of lox, some vegetables and slapped the top of the bagel over the whole thing. I zoomed to wash my hands and then gobbled that entire bagel so fast that I hardly tasted it. It was finished before Gitty even returned. I hadn’t tasted it, I hadn’t enjoyed it, I’d barely been aware that I’d eaten it.
So I had another.
Once I had already broken all my rules – ignoring the fact that I felt full and wasn’t hungry, not chewing slowly and concentrating on enjoying every bite, not choosing whole-grain options which would make me feel fuller for longer, not having a glass of cold water before I ate – it all felt useless. I figured that I had completely blown it by that point – a whole Shabbos and then two fully loaded bagels? Oh well. I had feasted at the danish table and enjoyed (two) generous servings of ice cream when they served it for dessert. I was hardly aware of the activities the school had prepared for us. All I could see was the food… the food I had eaten and the food that I could still eat. Gitty didn’t comment.
All in all, I was a miserable creature walking into Mrs. Rich’s office. I’d blown it, big time.
Even though I was ashamed, I hesitantly told Mrs. Rich everything. My heart thudded in my chest, but Mommy didn’t make any comments. She waited to hear what Mrs. Rich would say.
Mrs. Rich didn’t criticize my awful food choices. She didn’t make me feel like a failure. She nodded and listened quietly as I spoke, and when I finished, she smiled at me encouragingly. I looked down at my lap.
“Shevi,” Mrs. Rich said, “what happened to you was perfectly normal.”
My eyebrows went up. Mrs. Rich nodded firmly. “Yes, 100% normal. In fact, I’m so glad it happened.”
Now I was surprised my eyebrows weren’t grazing the ceiling. I didn’t know they could go that high. “I’m not,” I muttered.
“Well, I am.” Mrs. Rich repeated. “You know, this is a perfect time to discuss life, and success in general. Most people think success looks like this.” Mrs. Rich used her pen on her ever-present notepad and drew a straight, slanting upwards arrow.
“What people don’t want to realize is that real, lasting success looks like this.” And Mrs. Rich drew what started out like another arrow, but then went into a series of loops and tangles and ties and knots, before emerging straight again from the other side.
“All of life is like this,” Mrs. Rich said softly. “Growth is never a straight line. Everything that is worth working for is hard at times. And we’re only human; we fall sometimes. True greatness is taking life’s falls and using them as a springboard for greater, higher accomplishments and growth.”
“How can I use this as a springboard?” I frowned. Silently I thanked Mommy for listening quietly.
“Well, I’ll tell you how to not use it as a springboard.” Mrs. Rich smiled at me. “By coming home and saying, Oh well, my healthy eating is all lost. I’ll never be able to do it. Look at me, one evening of temptation and I lost all my self-control. That’s it. I give up… I’m going back to my old way of eating. I can’t stick to this.'”
I tried to suppress my smile. Mrs. Rich noticed and winked. “Right?”
“So…so what should I say to myself?”
“What do you think?”
“That… that because I fell once, it doesn’t mean that all is lost. Falling is… is part of the process of growing.” I said it slowly, thinking, testing the ideas. “That… that if I get up from here, I’ll… I’ll come out stronger.”
The expressions on both Mommy’s and Mrs. Rich’s faces made me feel like a valedictorian might feel when she finishes her amazing speech.
“Next time,” Mrs. Rich promised, “we’ll discuss tools we can use to cope better in these challenging situations. Shevi, you’re doing great!”
To be continued…
