Steamy bath

Michele Wright

I have missed this spot in front of the computer.
After 10 days, my writing voice has become quiet.
I feel awkward here now, as if I'm walking into class late.

My kids have been sick.
I am desperate for sleep.  Even when they are not awake, I am on alert for the next peep.
Last night I laid awake with mommy-dear-ears perked above my pillow.  Finally at 3 am I got up and took a steamy bath to ease muscles.  Shhh....Shh....I whispered to brain over and over.  It wouldn't listen.  It kept replaying Disney songs and random one-liners.  I realized how useless the thing can be, my thinking brain, like a leaky faucet.

Ironic, now that I need it, I think it is finally asleep.

I have lost weight.  I am back to my pre-baby weight.  I don't weigh myself, so I don't know a number.  I only know that my old clothes fit, and it feels like moving back into my parents house.  I don't want to have to fit.  But I can't afford anything else.

My husband got life insurance for us.  At first he thought his life was the only one with monetary value.  Then he realized, if I died he would have to replace childcare, and that is not cheap.  So I had to get these tests done.  They took my blood pressure, drew blood, asked a bunch of questions.  I had to step on the scale.  I did it backwards as I've been doing for 10 years.
"Just don't tell me the number, okay?"
Usually medical professionals understand this request.  Surely they see eating disordered women all day long.  Some aware and some still fumbling in the dingy cage for the key.  They don't question me.
But this women was not a medical professional.
She looked at me like I'd just squatted and peed on her shoe.
"Well that's odd.  Really?  Why not?"
"I just do better without a number in my head."
"Well why wouldn't you want to know that?  There's nothing wrong with it"
"I know, it is a little funny.  It's just better for me that way."
"Well, okay then.  I won't tell you if that's how you want it."
Then she left the chart out.  I'm pretty sure it said 132.  Damn her.  I know my healthy weight is somewhere around 130, give or take 5 pounds.
At my most obsessive, I weighed 112 pounds.  That was the year I didn't menstruate.  For one whole year I had no period, and pretended not to know why.  I even went to the doctor and got a clean bill of health.  There is nothing apparently wrong with a 5' 3" woman weighing 112 pounds.  But I knew.  I always knew that I was starving.

Ten years ago, when I got pregnant with Sophie I stopped listening to the scale.  My thinking brain was not going to rob me of growing a baby.  I went to my first appointment at 12 weeks and I weighed 142.  I was shocked.  I thought I was doing so well.  How could I have gained 10 pounds already?  That's when I decided. The scale would not decide my well-being anymore.  That assessment would come from me.  I have held to it ever since.  Now I see it as a moment of Grace.  A tiny silence in which I heard truth for just long enough.  During that pregnancy I swam a mile in the glistening pool every other day.  I climbed mountains.  I rode bikes.  I played catch in the backyard with my husband. My muscles sang.  I labored without any drugs. When Sophie was born it was with full awareness and a huge roar.
So even though that woman left the chart out, and I saw what I already knew, I am still okay.