There was jelly, peanut butter, humus, and chicken, 2 slices of wheat bread, a pita pocket, sun chips, melon, 2 juices, and 4 chocolate chip cookies. All of this was what my haphazard conglomeration of a lunch consisted of as it spanned the course of the afternoon. It had not been planned that way by any means. The make-up of the chaotic mess was fueled by circumstance and unforseen events but proved, in the end, to just reinforce my idea that everything happens for a reason. Now that I am back, safe and comfortable, at my pseudo “home”, I can safely look back on the whole event and consider it a challenge rather than a setback. I will explain…

Today was the day of the NBC studio tour. We set off for the subway at 11:30 and rode the express train to Rockefeller Center. This time our group consisted of eight patients and two staff members. The one with the plan, the directions, the agenda and the hook-up at NBC was Talia and, when we deboarded the train she led us through the acclaimed plaza.

We had our bag lunches with us and the idea had been that we would find a food court or a lobby with some tables to eat at before we had to be at NBC at 1 pm. The only problem was that there weren’t any areas to sit in that didn’t belong to specific restaurants. The train had dropped us off at the time we should have been starting lunch and, by the time we realized we were wandering in circles and actually found a place to settle down, we only had about 15 minutes to eat. Rockefeller Center is a pretty clean place, for being in the middle of the city, and I would have happily made myself comfortable for lunch sitting on the stone mosaic off to the side.

One of my big issues, along with keeping a schedule, is not having to stuff my face because I’m trying to eat in a hurry. Each lunch bag contained the PB & J sandwich, a bowl of cut melon, the 4 cookies, 2 juices, and bag of sun chips. Its quite a bit to eat in the time we were left with and, for the first time since my arrival at Columbia, I went into the meal with an obstinately bad mood. My anxiety was already heightened by starting the meal late and the confusion about where to eat only added to that. I live by a schedule which is part of how the eating disorder took hold in the first place. Now, I know I am going to have to challenge that rigidness and need for construction, but I just wasn’t ready for what today’s winds blew my way.

I wound up eating sulkily, quietly stewing in my anxiety-ridden annoyance, until Talia declared it time to go. I just left what I didn’t get to in the bag. Talia said I could finish as we walked but my frustration and anger with the situation superseded rationality as I handed her the lunch bag with a firm “no”. As soon as we started making our way to the studio my anger flipped, though, and directed itself at me and my own actions. For the very first time I had not done 100% eating my meal. That status I was so proud of had been broken in just a few minutes time and for that I was furious. The entire time on the rather short NBC tour was spent beneath a fog of failure. I knew I could have done better if I had only tried harder and my mind seemed to not want to let my heart live that fact down.

(I swear this has a happy ending…to be continued…)