It’s Wednesday afternoon. CNN is playing in the background as I sit at my computer penning my weekly newsletter to you. TOPIC: Weighing In on the New Year.
Halfway through, my attention rivets to the TV screen a few feet away. Hordes of angry, hyper-active people are storming the Capital Building, scaling walls, screaming obscenities. One guy is wearing a sweatshirt sporting the phrase “Camp Auschwitz.” Another proudly carries a Confederate flag – shortly thereafter, he will be filmed wandering in the Senate vestibule proudly waving it.
Part of me is horrified at the enfolding scene of chaos blasting from my TV. Part of me is highly irritated because every paragraph I have written for my newsletter now suddenly seems trite and irrelevant.
But it isn’t.
My original thought for this week’s newsletter was to write about the fear of the scale and what transpires when instead of avoiding the scale, we begin weighing ourselves every day – an action I have been performing since October.
I was going to issue a SPOILER ALERT: If you have never agonized over getting on a scale and weighing yourself, save yourself some time and skip this week’s column. You simply will not relate.
I was going to write about my late mom (of blessed memory) who had no problem with THE SCALE. She ate mindfully, moderately and healthily. And never had a weight problem.
I was going to write about what it felt like to weigh 110 pounds in fifth grade. That was ME. Bigness was my buddy and my physical image of myself never wavered: Overgrown Lummox.
I was going to write about a morbidly obese friend who I greatly admired for her spunk and creativity. She then lost over 100 pounds and my admiration doubled. How does she maintain the loss? She weighs herself religiously every morning at the same time.
And then I was going to chat about the rest of us:
- The ones who put off going to the doctor for a yearly check-up because we suffer from FOTS (fear of the scale).
- The ones who, when we work up the courage to step on that digital monster, strip completely – including, but not limited to, hair adornments, bikini underwear, gold hoop earrings and rubber mouth guards.
- The ones whose blood pressure scoots up dramatically by even the thought of seeing the scale tally up our poundage.
My new year’s resolution for 2021 was simple: I WAS GOING TO CONTINUE TO WEIGH MYSELF EVERY MORNING.
Why?
Because when I do daily weigh-ins:
- My fear of the scale diminishes.
- I get less sensitized to each day’s fluctuations.
- And as the impact lessens, I turn my energy and attention to other endeavors.
Minutes tick by on Wednesday afternoon. I tear myself away from the screen to dash to my 3pm hair appointment. My stylist and I track the developments from my I Phone. We see marauding thugs climbing up walls, shattering windows and pouring forth into the hallowed halls of our government. As a 220 year-long tradition of peaceful transfer of power is broken, she and I remark in unison: “We will always remember where we were at this moment of chaos.”
This is unprecedented. Mobs storming the U.S. Capital Building and forced evacuation of Senators to an undisclosed location. Domestic terrorism is playing out in real time – not in a Netflix series.
And I realize that in today’s world, our watching the daily news – glued to it sometimes – has had the same effect as weighing ourselves daily:
- We become desensitized.
- Only extreme fluctuations even register on our personal radar.
- As the impact lessens, we also react less viscerally to reality. In this case, where our country is concerned, we become used to the spewed hate, racial injustice, anti-Semitism and baseless attacks on our constitution and election processes.
My revised New Year’s resolution for 2021: Yes, I am going to continue to weigh myself daily. Yes, I am going to continue to watch the news daily, track the trends, and maintain heightened awareness. But most of all, I will neverforget to revere justice, seek the truth, and value our United States Constitution and Democracy.
Keep Preserving Your Bloom and G-d Bless America,
Iris Ruth Pastor