Day 8/23. This is where, if you read yesterday, you might be curious if I triumphed over my fear of standing on the scale or not. I did not triumph. I did not step on the scale. I have no idea if I’ve lost weight this week although I have been eating on protocol, drinking lots of water, zero overeats, zero snacking, running every other day. In my mind, I think, “You know you. You’ll either have maintained or gained because losing is the last thing you’re able to do.” And I don’t want the noise, you guys. I don’t want the noise and asshole talk that comes with whenever I fail at this kinda stuff. The point is to rewrite the story around weight and my body and then, when it comes to a chance to be kind to myself, all my inner meanest, cruelest voices get together and say, “LIke hell you can get rid of us. Let’s show her who she really is.”
Maybe Monday. Maybe if I do a little better at withholding and running and shame, then the universe will know I’m back in punishment mode and will let me lose half a pound because I’m being a “good girl.” Good girls carry the right amount of self-loathing to remind themselves they are only here at the mercy of everyone else’s benevolent tolerance, they should be thankful and do a bit more groveling. Ugh.
Part 2: Things you can do no matter what the number on the scale says: Write songs, write blog posts, pray, journal, make stuff, think about the world, think about life, imagine a beach far away, listen to podcasts, read books, listen to music, vision board a business plan, practice thinking something different, practice letting go of old habits, use a cellular telephone, watch a movie, replay beautiful memories in your mind, imagine losing all the weight.
When this is all over, and by ‘this’ I mean our lives, hopefully the scale won’t be the shining example of our goodness. Hopefully the food we put in our mouth and the food we didn’t put in our mouth won’t be the height of our accomplishment and how we earned the right to be here. Hopefully the food we put in our mouths doesn’t feel like the only option for comfort and satisfaction because we’ve closed the doors on what we really wanted to be and what we truly hoped to become and settled for ice cream instead. Hopefully whatever food story we inherited from a previous generation gets re-evaluated and questioned with adult eyes- especially if we assumed its truth back when we were still children.
I’m writing down some painful fucking truths about my early years not because I’m a (debatable) total emotional mess. I’m doing it because I’m finally not that anymore. Of course I’m still battling old demons and wrestling with my own brokenness, but not in the same way. When I tell you about my English teacher telling me he loved me and being the victim of some serious bullshit emotional manipulation, I’m doing it to set that 17 year old girl free. The me who is writing this? She’s pretty much fine and doing great. What I need to do is open all the cages on these younger versions of me and let them be free too in all their imperfection and confusion so that these ghosts of Hope don’t keep showing up trying to monkey around with my 44 year old life anymore.
What we resist persists. The stuff we don’t want to look at? Oh don’t you worry. It’s down in the basement lifting weights, getting ripped, ready to show up in your life in the weirdest fucking ways possible. Trust me on this one. If you think you’re handling it or keeping a lid on it, I promise you the world can tell there’s something rattling the cage trying to get out. Whatever we thought we could keep from having to deal with or whatever we thought we could keep hidden? It’s oozing out, it’s ticking, it’s tapping on the glass, it’s 3 jelly donuts, it’s judging your every move, it’s the thing that won’t let me step on the scale. I see it now. It took a while, but now I see it.