The relationship with my scale is as precarious as two teenagers in heat.  Sure, as long as everyone is doing what they’re told and playing by the rules, it’s all butterflies and hand jobs.  But inevitably, someone wanders outside the lines, the mutual trust is broken, someone’s head swivels, and the next thing you know it’s all death threats and restraining orders.  But I can’t walk away.  I am tethered to this uncertainty.  This is my life as a fat girl.  This is the life of someone trying so desperately to be something else.  To be thin.  To be normal.  To be accepted.  To be anything but what we are.  We can turn on a dime.  We can flip the switch from rage to sage in five seconds flat.  And it all depends on one thing: that smooth, slick bastard of a scale in the corner of my bathroom.

There are only thirty-seven steps between my bed and my scale.  I know this, because every morning, before my eyes even fully open, I take that journey.   Some days, when I have been good the night before, and I can feel my skin loose and a pocket of air under my feet, the walk is more of a skip.   It’s a journey made with baited breath, with hopes high and fingers crossed.  It’s like having a boy slip his hand under your shirt for the first time, or sneaking out with your girlfriends at three o’clock in the morning.

Continue reading “Goal” →