The Oxymoron, Where Losing Five Pounds is the Goal

I once worked with a teacher who was the walking definition of an oxymoron.  When I met her she was vegan, would talk about it in detail, although getting to the point felt like participating in a one sided game of checkers with her.  When food was offered she never said the simple no thank you, she put on a show.  Her eyes would slide from left to right as she looked at the particular food item, one finger poised to pick up whatever it was, an eyebrow raised, “Does this have cheese in it, eggs, meat,” she would ask, her nose wrinkling.  She was soon given the answer that she had to have expected. Yes, the food has all of those things and probably other ingredients, many of which even the most sound linguistic would have trouble pronouncing.  We worked in public education after all, in middle America.  Vegan options were never a thing.  If there was a salad, which was a rare sighting, it was mostly cheese and predressed, each lettuce leaf dripping with some kind of white goo.  Inevitably someone would ask her the question that I suspected she had been waiting to hear, “Are you on a particular diet?”  “Why, yes I am,” she would then say and I could hear the gloat behind every syllable.  “I’m vegan.”

“I don’t see how you do it,” one teacher replied with a shake of her head.  “I just could never have that much discipline,” someone else added.  I could see her rise a bit higher, her chin titled upwards as she smiled with satisfaction because  yes she had the self control that we all envied. She then went on to describe the many recipes that she had tried, how amazing she felt.  She was actually down five pounds and had boundless amounts of energy. 

But the next year she had changed.  I watched, confused, as she shoveled cheese and meat sticks into her mouth at our first teacher’s meeting.  What was happening? I thought, but didn’t dare to ask, and neither, apparently, did anyone else.  But I was curious so I watched as she was presented with food. “Does this have cheese, dairy, or meat?”  She asked.  How can this be? I thought.  Last year she was asking the opposite.  She couldn’t stand the thought of eating a single animal product.  Oh, how times have changed, I thought next.   There was another awkward pause before someone dared to ask, “Are you on some sort of special diet” to which she replied with another proud smile, “Yes, I’m keto.” 

“I don’t see how you do it,” one teacher said.  “I just could never have that much discipline,” someone else added.  And again I could see her rise a bit higher, her chin tilted upwards as she smiled with satisfaction because yes she had the self control that we should all envy.  She then went on to describe the many recipes that she had tried, how amazing she felt.  She was actually down five pounds and had boundless amounts of energy.

I soon came to the realization that this particular person may just be starving for attention and saying something shocking, something that most people could never do, would make them admired in others’ eyes.

This same teacher taught English, but bragged about how much she hated to read, which I never quite understood.  How does that even happen?  Or was she just trying to be shocking, once again.

She is not the only one with this type of oxymoronic behavior.  There are others, myself even.  It’s almost like we all have a certain version of ourselves outlined for others to look at and enjoy, but when it comes down to it, that’s not who we really are, and maybe for some of us, or most of us, we will never know who that person is.  For so long we have been living with this idealistic version of ourselves, the authentic one buried somewhere too deep to be discovered. 

I don’t know whatever happened to the vegan turned keto lover.  She left the school soon after, moved somewhere far away I heard.  Hopefully, she’s not teaching English anymore.  The last thing that we need is someone who hates to read teaching our youth the importance of it.  I do wonder what her new diet regimen is, although I suspect, knowing what I know about her, that she is on some type of GLP 1.  But I’m sure when food is offered, she will still evaluate it with a critical eye before pushing it to the side because she is just too full to eat a single bite.  She probably will wait for a bit, hoping that someone notices her lack of appetite and finally asks her, “Are you on some sort of special diet?” And that is the only segway that she will need to tell them all about the weightloss drug and how she feels amazing, she’s actually down five pounds and has boundless amounts of energy.