The Day My Bathroom Scale Died

One woman’s love story with weight

About two months ago, I stepped on my scale and the reading came up ERROR.

Sometimes my life is one giant comedy. I laughed and moved on.

I didn’t think much of it until later that same week and realized the batteries had corroded. I plucked them out and never did replace them.

My scale remains upside down in my bedroom closet. Looks like she’s in surgery. I’ve covered her with a pillowcase.

Well, as of late she’s been speaking to me throughout the night and even into the daytime. The words are urgent and demanding.

I closed the closet door and stuffed a towel along the edge.

I whispered to only me, I dread putting batteries back in because numbers can be so mean.

They can be sharp and critical.

Numbers can be a label — you are too much, too big, too wrong AND you need to be different to fit in.

Well, fuck that shit!

By the way, I absolutely love when this side of me speaks so clearly!

What I really need is to be healthy. And to be healthy is to be kind to myself.

I need to be Nature and let dreams grow me as if I were an ocean.

I need to listen to whales and nurture tenderness that sometimes I forget and instead I reach for something sweet — like a cookie.

I am the cookie.

I need silence to garden my soul’s temple. I need magic to plant creativity.

I don’t want a number to harness me into being whole.

I am already whole.

My bumps, wiggles, squiggles, and insane giggles are the curvaceous foundation of a holy tempest that sees my shape as complex geometry.

My being can’t be contained in a thin lined square.

What if we saw ourselves as a golden ratio amplifying the infinite spirals that complete us rather than compete with us?

I believe this would be a reunion with self. A holding of real and we would soften into a bowl of warmth, gentleness and above all self-love and respect.

That’s some really amazing soul food.

For now, my scale still lays covered and upside down. The new batteries are on a high shelf.

Those two aren’t getting together anytime soon unless…

I give them permission to support me, to be my friend and to love me…

just as I am.

A special thank you for author, speaker, colleague, friend and mentor, David Bedrick who inadvertently inspired me to write this.

Carolyn Riker, MA, LMHC, is a psychotherapist and author of three books. Her latest is My Dear, Love Hasn’t Forgotten You. If you’d like, follow her on Facebook at Carolyn Riker, MA, LMHC or Instagram.