I Broke up with the Asshole, Finally.

It has been years.  Years.  I have had an abusive, toxic, love/hate relationship for years with 'the asshole".

I am not really certain when I realized that our relationship was abusive or toxic.  I do know, that I announced last year, that I was ending the relationship and breaking up.  It took a whole extra year to actually do it. I knew the relationship was over and there was no turning back.  No amount of counseling was going to change my mind.

And I knew my day to day life would be hard in the beginning, but after time, I would be ok and could make it without him. 

It was not easy, we had been together for a long time, but I did it and I am not looking back.

I broke up with the asshole, my scale.

It all started in my parents closet, an archaic scale, yellow and black.  No, not Steeler's colors.

I remember as a young girl stepping on the scale.  It started out as an occasional thing, I was just a kid.

Then I became a teen and the occasional weigh in became more frequent.

And then, it was daily.

Sometimes hourly. I was like the wrestlers in my home with their obsession with weighing themselves.

I have always struggled with my weight and body image.  I didn't have a disorder.  Didn't puke, binge eat or restrict but, I did have a bad body image.  Me and half the planet.

For years, I have started my day on the scale.

You know, that is not the best way to start your day, regardless of who you are.

I would weigh myself, check my banking account and my "button's" grades and by 6:15 am, my day was already turning to shit.

Over the years, the scale become my measuring stick.  And that scaled moved up and down and all around.  And, I measured myself by the scale.

I would have conversations with other women who would admit that they had never had a mammogram and did not weigh themselves.  I will admit I was appalled about the scale, not the mammogram. Shame on me.

About two years ago, one of my good friends posted something about how many times you weigh yourself.  I answered honestly, "daily".

She replied, "I wish you didn't do that.'

I was shocked, didn't people weigh themselves?

I have thought about that statement for two years.

And that is a lot of time in my brain.

Look, I am approaching my 61 birthday. I am pretty sure my swimsuit modeling days are over.  I am who I am.  I am not on medication, walk about 30 miles per week, have some muscles and am not often sick...not bad for a chunky girl.

So, why not weigh yourself?  Why not check in? Why not have a measuring stick?

So for two years, I weighed myself on the scale thinking about what my friend said, "I wish you would not do that".

Somedays I loved the scale and somedays I hated the scale.  I would torture myself every morning by this flat thing, with numbers on it on the floor.  Ridiculous.

And then, something happened.  I was having a conversation with somebody who was ending a relationship and was feeling badly about it and he said this "everyone else is getting married and I should be too."

I quickly jumped on him and said, "do not measure yourself by anybody else and their actions."

As quickly as it came out of my own mouth, I wanted to slap myself.  I had been doing that exact thing.

I would step on that scale to check weight but I was really measuring my "success" or happiness, whatever, by some scale.

That scale  did NOT measure my happiness, health, spirituality, relationships nothing but my weight.  

It occurred to me, when thinking about the conversation with that young man, the lowest the scale ever was for me, was the worst time in my life.  Seriously,  worst part of my life, the scale had the lowest number.

All of these years, I had been stepping on the wrong thing.  I was allowing a thing on the floor, that I would move around and around on the floor until I got a number I was happy with, to measure me.  I was Kate in the first episode of "This is Us" except I don't wear earrings.

It was not something I should have been bound to or relying on on a daily basis.

Instead, I should have been measuring love in my heart and those positive relationships and the bounce in my step during those morning walks.

I named my scale "asshole"  Seriously, pathetic.  Who names a scale?  I did it.  And interesting enough, I was the asshole.

I judged and measured myself.by something on a floor that I manipulated some days to get the reading I wanted.  I am the asshole.

My new year's resolution was to break up with the asshole, the scale and not measure my losses or my wins by that machine.

Instead, I was going to measure my wins or losses but the animals I saw in the morning while I walked, the sunbeams and the peace I felt from being outside and the pairs of shoes I had to replace.

Funny how we measure ourselves.  The cars we drive, the homes we chose, the vacations we take, the titles we acquire, the sickness we beat, how we measure ourselves.

The very person who questioned me weighing myself, gave up a pharma sales job to be a personal trainer.  Interesting enough, somebody told her (and seriously who would say this) "you don't have the body of the trainer?"

That statement changed her life.  For the better.  So, take that.

How much of our body and fitness should be measured by mental wellness?   The majority of it. Do we cripple ourselves with imaginary yardsticks or scales?  Maybe?

Because I have stepped away from the scale, I have stepped back in time.  I have spent an enormous amount of time measuring  sweet moments spent with my mom and brother, my husband and three children, nieces and nephews and friends and family.

I took a deep look at life and time and realized it is little and short filled with big and small moments.  But, if I was honest and my life was an hour glass, it is getting short on the sand.  This was something I could not fathom and could not measure. So instead of measuring losses, I had to go for monumental gains.

Better moments would be spent outside breathing air than inside rearranging the scale.

And when I think about all of those moments, nobody ever said, "your number on the scale does not meet my expectations", only the voice in my head said that.  Asshole.

it wasn't supposed to be this way but...: To need or to be needed..Valentine's Day Edition

it wasn't supposed to be this way but...: To need or to be needed..Valentine's Day Edition: It is one of those stories that has stood the test of time.  Anybody who knew me when I was a junior at WVU in Morgantown WV most likely kno...

To need or to be needed..Valentine's Day Edition

It is one of those stories that has stood the test of time.  Anybody who knew me when I was a junior at WVU in Morgantown WV most likely knows about this story.  Every Valentine's Day, this story enters my mind and I think of it fondly.

This week, I had a conversation with me BF and I think I am now looking at the Valentine story differently.

Long before meal cards, VENMO, debit cards, credit cards for college kids and Insta-cart, I was a college student in 1981.

It was February and I was broke.  My roommate and I lived on potatoes.  We were  the Bubba Gump of taters.  We boiled them, baked them, fried them or chopped them and topped them with butter packs that we stole from McDonalds.  We were broke.

Oatmeal was our other go to meal.  Cheap.  Fills you up and you could steal sugar packs to put on top of the oatmeal.  And it was warm on those cold, snowy mornings.

When we lived high on the hog, my roommate, who also worked as a bartender, would bring the leftover popcorn home and we would sprinkle it with sugar and milk and it and eat it like Sugar Pops. 

Yes, we were broke.

In addition, our washer broke and the landlord didn't fix it.

I had turned my underwear inside out and back in and out several times.  My clothes were dirty.

And it was gray and cold in Morgantown and I had the winter blues. 

Thank goodness I come from a family of card lovers and card senders.  I swear our name means "Hallmark" in another language.

I came to my apartment and checked the mail.  And there it was, in the shiny red envelope, a Hallmark with a sticker.  I knew immediately it was from my Mamaw, she nailed very distinctive penmanship.

I opened the Valentine and "it" fell out.  "It" was a ten dollar bill.  "It" was a 1982 ten dollar bill and worth a bunch more than a 2022 ten dollar bill.

I grabbed that ten dollar billed and rejoiced on that porch of my apartment in Morgantown, West Virginia like I was Charlie getting the golden ticket in the streets that sealed his trip with Willy Wonka.

My friend volunteered his car so I could do laundry.  I still remember the smell of the car, filled with bags of dirty clothes versus the smell on the way home.

And then, I did what every broke college student would do who had $7 left from the Valentine windfall, I called my bff and my two crazy friends.

Two dollar pitchers at the Chestnut Pub, on me.  The Chestnut Pub will always be one of my favorite college memories and from this night.

We drank those two dollar pitchers, even lived high on the hog and ordered a crock of pretzel rods with dip and had a large time.  Playboy poses and a million laughs.

My grandmother has now rolled over in her grave about 100 times.

This past week, the same bff who did an array of poses that night, called me.  And a few tears were shed, "my kids don't need me anymore."

Her kids are older, in the late 30's or approaching the 30's.  Married, single, the gauntlet.

There are no more carpools, teams to coach or Valentine's to buy for the classroom party, the new phase of her life is here.

I listened to her tears and her angst and felt for her.

I really didn't miss my kids when they all left.  I knew they were coming back. 

And then my daughter announced she is getting a summer job in Colorado and really will only home about twenty days in 2022.  And she did it all by herself.

And then it hit me too, my kids no longer need me like they did.

Ugh.

All those times I wanted them to pee in the potty, tie their own shoes, pour the milk on the cereal, bit me in the heart.

Being needed can be overwhelming and depleting. Being needed can fill your heart.

This year, more than any other time, I missed being needed.  I missed my kids.  I missed Valentine's day with them.

And so, I sent the V-Day package.

Insane, my kids do not need any candy but I needed to send it.

My kids don't need me to remind them I am their mom, but I needed to remind them.

Maybe that is what my grandmother was feeling when she sent that card.  She always sent to all five grandkids but maybe she missed being needed.  Perhaps she knew I needed. Or maybe to remind me that she was my grandmother.

My bff is fine now.  Adjusting but fine.

I am adjusting too. 

Give or send a Valentine.

It just maybe the boost someone needed.