Tipping the Scale

I gave my scale a funeral today. I walked it out of the house, wished it well, thanked it for the role it served in my life.....and it was gone. My husband cheered.

It had become my frenemy: cheering me on when I was down, sending me evil thoughts when I was up. I didn't own one for years, then suddenly, one day I did. And for the last 2 1/2 years, excepting vacations, I have stood on the f%^$&er every single day.

Sure, I could pretend the number didn't matter to me.....but if that was so why was I standing on it???

Taking it out of my house and tipping it into a ready receptacle outside, though, is not a rebellion. It was, for me, a gesture of surrender; a willingness to give up control of one more piece of my life. See, I am very driven, very ambitious, and a hardcore perfectionist. (I can use these early posts to tell you flat out about me since no one is really reading them anyway! I'm sure these qualities will all be evident as we hang out together more) And drive, ambition, and, ahem, attention to good quality are admirable traits to have. But they have a dark side, and that side is called I Want to Control the Universe and I'm Actually Kinda Scared About Things not Going Exactly as Planned because Then I Won't Know if Everything is Turning Out. Do you have this?

So I keep looking for ways I can surrender. WHICH DOES NOT MEAN GIVE UP. Hold my vision of what my Life, Body, Relationships, Career, Money, WHATEVER looks like, and then let go of how it's going to come about. Do the next right thing and let it be. And I do that completely imperfectly. But for now, for today, I've decided that I know how my clothes fit---I'll know if I go up or down. I know how to eat in a nourishing way for my body, and I know if I've been doing that or not. I know if I feel like it's a skinny jeans day, and I know if I don't. But most importantly I am interested in what it is to trust myself, and not some little black rod sitting in a box of metal. I'm talking about freedom, people, something that makes your insides feel like this:

So maybe for today you give up needing to know what your co-worker makes, what your mom said to your brother, what that person you went on the date with last night though about you. Because these are the things that make your life feel like it's this big . (that space before the period). And because freedom, in my experience, does not come in a box.

photo by my dad (thanks Pa!)