Tell Me What I'm Worth

Yes, you. The pieces of plastic, wires and metal welded together, placed oh-so-carefully at the foot of my bed. Tell me if I am good enough, worthy of eating, worthy of having fun, worthy of sitting and watching TV instead of exercising. Tell me if I am taking up too much space, tell me if I should skip a snack later. Tell me if it's okay to put dressing on my salad, milk in my cereal. Tell me if I am safe, tell me if it's going to be a good.

While you are at it, can you predict Saturday night's lottery numbers? Perhaps the weather for tomorrow? Can you tell me what the score for the game on Sunday will be?

What's that? A "no"? You can't predict the future? Oh, I get it. You can only measure ME. My worth, my value, my place in this world. You can only tell me the stuff I can figure out myself or with the help from my friends and family.

Yes, yes, I hear what you are saying. I need to know, every day, the second I wake up, what you have to say about the day ahead. How you see it panning out. I need your flashing number embedded in my brain as I go about my day. Or do I?

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Why do we give so much power to something so worthless? Sure, scales can be helpful. I can't bake muffins without them. They can measure, in a limited capacity, health. But not really. They don't tell you if you have lost 5lbs of water weight or if someone yanked out your spleen during the night. Just that there is a 5lb difference. They can't tell me if my heart and kidneys have grown stronger or if that 2lb difference is due to the soda I just drank. They are really very limited indeed. And yet, every.damn.morning, I stand tenderly on the surface. Scared of what it will tell me, scared of how the information will be interpreted in my head, scared of the shape my day will take if the number is "wrong" (note to self: it's always wrong, because there IS no "right").

Heh. Not tomorrow. Tomorrow is a scale-free day. I'm not going to abandon you forever, but I'm going to try a day without your input. No, I won't magically balloon up in one day without your shadow cast over me for one day. The world won't end, my day won't be chaotic and crazy and out of control. I'll be exactly the same, just with a little more peace of mind.