The Rope

    I slip my feet out of the heated flannel and place my toes to the cold wood as my exhausted body tries to lift itself from the mattress.  I sit in the darkness on the edge of the bed squeezing my eyes tightly shut trying to talk myself out of moving any further.  

    “You don’t have to do it.  You don’t have to do it.”  I hope that repeating this will block the thoughts of what I have to do.  I hope that repeating this will make me forget that I have to get up, have to check, have to know.  I hope that repeating this will finally make it ring true, “you don’t have to do it.”

    But, somewhere deep inside I know,  it does not ring true, it never rings true, and, I do have to do it.  I sit a few more moments on the side of the bed, in the darkness, berating myself silently.  I scold myself for lying awake for 15 minutes now, 15 minutes have gone by in which I could have already gotten up, done what I needed to do, and gone back to bed, to warmth, to safety, to sleep.  I also chastise myself for needing to get up in the first place, for needing to know, for needing at all.  Mostly, though, I am so angry at myself, so angry at myself for being this fat. If I wasn’t this fat I wouldn’t need to know, to check, to make sure.  In fact, if I wasn’t this fat I wouldn’t need anything at all, because I would already have everything.  

    I lift my weak body off of the bed and begin the familiar trek to the bathroom.  I slowly creep across the floor of the bedroom to the door trying not to creak the wood surface below.  I am sure my husband heard me slip across the floor an hour ago and I am desperate not to wake him again.  Sadly, my need to know and my need to check outweigh my need to not wake him, so I keep softly tiptoeing out the bedroom door.  My body temperature is lowering with every step and I am shuddering with the chill in the air.  I can feel my stomach muscles clench in retaliation.  The house is 70 degrees but my body does not process it that way, to my body this house is frigid, and that frigidness is trying to constantly infiltrate me, so much so that I must have all my muscles tight to ward off the cold.  So I keep sneaking my way down the hallway, muscles tight, until I reach the bathroom door.  

    The door is closed and I put my hand on the bronze knob.  I pause for a moment, as I know what is to come, and it is worth the cold.  I open the door to a rush of warm wind.  I stand in it, I bask in it, I feel it flush my face as I enter.  Once inside I quickly and methodically close the door behind me, turning the knob as it shuts to lessen some of the inevitable noise.  Then I turn around to face it.  To face the object that has woken me from my sleep again.  The object that has total control of my life.  The object that tells me how I feel, what I do, and who I am.  The scale.  I am the scale. The scale is me.

    It sits on the floor between the toilet and the cabinet, just centered, and the bottom edge runs perfectly along the crack that lies between the large Spanish tiles.  It is of course clean and spotless, as dust adds weight.  I walk up so that my toes are two inches away and look down.  It looks up at me with it’s hardened silver face and blank gray eyes.  I have to weigh less than last time.  Well, let me rephrase that, I have to weigh at least the same as last time, but my goal is to weigh less than last time.  I had met my goal of being medically underweight months ago, but now there is a new goal, and the new goal is to weigh less than the last goal.  This way I never have to make a new goal, the new goal makes itself.  

    I step on, right foot and then left, trying to get a perfect centering of each foot so that none of my weight feels unevenly distributed.  I stand there attempting to keep my body as light in the air as possible, using what little core strength I have to lift my body off of the scale, in an attempt to hover over it and not actually stand on it at all.  I look down.  It reads precisely half a pound less than an hour ago.  I have no feeling yet about this information.  Half a pound less.  I step backwards off of the scale and bend down to grab it by its front edge.  I slide it out so slowly that it makes no noise as it slips gently across the floor and I stop when it is centered perfectly within one of the large floor tiles.  Again, I stand with my toes two inches away and look down, and again, it stares up at me with it’s stoic face.  I try to step on with the same graceful dance as last time, but this time it does not feel soft, graceful, and light when I step up so I have to step back down and try again.  On the fifth try, and after feeling my body get very much weaker, it finally feels right and I get to stay on. I pause for a moment and peer down.  More than a half pound less.  This time the scale is .6 pounds less.  Having the scale inform me twice now that I have truly lightened I am starting to relax enough to shed the numbness that had taken over my body and I begin to feel the rush that has been released upon seeing the lower number flash in the eyes of the scale.   I back off and bend down to move the scale into its third and final spot.  I slide it so that the crack in the tile goes perfectly straight under the center of the scale.  I repeat the process of getting on, only trying twice before staying on this time.  Half a pound less again.  

    I step off and stand silent, just me and my scale,  here in the middle of the bathroom, here in the middle of the night.  I take a moment to give thanks for my lighter body.  Three readings in those exact spots on the tile mean that my body has purged more weight.  If even one reading is high all the low readings become false and I have gained.  I ponder for a moment that I do not know who to thank for this weight loss? God? The scale? My past self for following all of the rules today as told and only eating 325 calories?  Before I can figure out who to give thanks to, all of the good feelings of relief and calm are replaced with the sinking dread of how far I have left to go, of how much more I have left to lose. It is as if I am drowning and seeing the number gives me one fresh breath of air to gulp down, but as soon as I gulp it I realize I am still sinking, drowning, dying.  And just like if I were alone sinking in the middle of the ocean, there is no fight to be had, there is only an acceptance of my fate, a slow descent to the oceans floor.  An agreement between myself and the scale that I will not fight, because while I know I am descending into death, the descent itself feels so right, so calm, it is like a slow motion underwater ballet, but I am just an audience member, watching from the dark balcony, unable to jump in and save the damsel, to save myself.

    I lift the scale up off the floor and carefully return it to its original position, making sure to line the front edge perfectly again with the tile crack.  I step back and position myself in front of the mirror.  I look at myself, though never at my face.  I start at my collar bones, I feel them with my fingertips starting by the shoulder.  I use my fingertips and thumb to push against the bone itself and run my thumb and fingers slowly from one end down to the other.  I press my fingers around the top of the collar bone and my thumb around the bottom to grab the bone itself.  I check to see how far my fingers can make it around the bone and one day I hope that my fingertips and thumb touch around the backside of the collarbone. Then, I make sure my pinkie finger and thumb  can encircle my wrists.  I check one side and then the other all the while watching myself in the mirror.  Next is always my pelvis.  I turn my body sideways to make sure the bones protrude farther out than my stomach.  I feel every inch of them, imagining what they look like, always seeing them in my mind as crisp, white, and bleached.  I touch the tops of the crests and feel how far they stick out.  I close my eyes and think about how good it feels when I am driving down the road in my car and I slip my right elbow into the inside curve of my pelvis.  My elbow just rests there like a broken arm in a sling.  They just fit, the elbow and crest, like they were meant to hold each other.  Sitting with my elbow within my pelvis is as comforting to me as being swaddled, held safe, and loved.  I open my eyes and see that I am still fingering my pelvic bones, pinching my way around the edges.  Finally, I reach around to my tailbone. My coccyx is the newest bone that has shown itself through my skin.  I start at my lower spine and follow it down until I feel it, I am always shocked by its protrusion.  It is so pronounced and I can hold the entire end of it within my fingertips.  I touch around all of the bony bumps and cringe at the thought of taking a bath again.  Baths were a love of mine, a daily way to combat the constant cold.  Since my coccyx has made its appearance I can no longer sit in a bath without intense pain from my bone and the tub’s porcelain making direct contact with each other.  

    I step away from the mirror and turn to look at the door.  Before my brain catches up with where my body is taking me I am in the kitchen.  I open the refrigerator and stare inside.  I feel defeat as I close it again.  I do the same with each cupboard door, open it, look inside, close it again.  Finally, I lean with my backside against the counter and stare at the cupboard across from me.  I feel my stomach aching for food.  I feel a hollowness within me that yearns to be filled, yet oddly, at the same time this hollowness also brings me such a feeling of calm.  The emptiness in my body is always equally paired with an emptiness in my mind, and an emptiness in my mind means there is no stress, no worry, no panic, and all feelings are numbed such that I can simply feel just the edges of them.  This is the battle in my body, one empty hole begging to be filled while another empty hole is trying desperately to not let anything in.  

    “One cookie, one cookie, one cookie can’t hurt, you are down, you are lighter, you deserve it, you’ve been good, one cookie, just one, just one, just one, just one, you deserve it, right?” My stomach is aching for something to quiet the spasms, and in this moment, before my mind can block the motion of my hands, I reach out, open the cupboard across from me and grab one of my husbands cookies from the wrapper that always sits half open.  It is a Nutter Butter and I look at it in my hands.  Two peanut butter cookies smushed together by a sweet peanut buttery filling inside.  I feel it with my fingertips, I feel the sides and how the filling doesn’t come quite to the edge of the cookies, I feel the groves and bumps that the pattern forms on the top and bottom.  I feel the sandy grit of the sugar as it slides off of the cookie as I rub it.  I put it up to my lips and smell it with my eyes closed.  I feel the sweet smell start to rouse the calculator in my brain.  The calculator starts to count the calories in sugar plus flour plus peanut butter plus eggs plus butter plus hydrogenated oil because everything good has hydrogenated oil plus…

    My stomach takes over and I bite half of it off.  I immediately taste.  I taste the food. I taste the sweetness of sugar.  I taste the richness of peanut butter and thickness of the cookie as it attempts to melt into one congealed mass in my mouth.  I love it, I relish it, for a moment. For a moment it is safe. For a moment I can eat. For a moment the food can sit in my mouth and tease my stomach. But it only lasts a moment as suddenly the cookie seems to dissolve into a thousand tiny maggots.  The maggots are all over my mouth climbing inside my cheeks and under my tongue.  It sends a revulsion right through my core and I panic to get the maggots, the food, out of my mouth.  I grab a paper towel and start spitting the goo into it.  I spit and spit trying not to let any saliva filled with maggots spill down my throat.  I begin wiping my tongue off with a paper towel, and then run to the sink and begin flushing my mouth out with water.  I rinse and gargle over and over until I feel the flush of panic start to leave my body.  As the panic leaves my body so does any strength I have left and I sink to sit on the kitchen floor.  I lean there and listen to my breath trying to catch itself. I listen for any sound that my husband has woken. Mostly though, I listen to my voice, my voice that is raging loud in my head, my voice that is very angry at me for daring to put something in my mouth in the first place. 

    “Fucking idiot, fool, I am so fat, fat, fat, fat, fat, I do not deserve food, I do not deserve to eat, I do not deserve a cookie, how dare I, how fucking dare I put that in my mouth, I am going to weigh 10 pounds more now, I am so fat, fat, fat, fat, fat, I am worthless, I can’t do anything right, I fuck everything up, I am too fat to eat anything, I will not eat tomorrow to make up for it, nothing, nothing, nothing, zero, I will not eat, I do not deserve to eat, I do not deserve to live at all, I am a fat fuck.” 

    I know I have to get up off this floor eventually, and I desperately want to run to my heated bed next to the warm body of my husband, but at the same time I know I can’t do that without first returning to the bathroom.  I slowly reach up and grab for the sink’s edge.  I pull myself up and am hit with a wave of dizziness that almost sends me back down to the floor as my vision begins to go dark.  I lean over into the sink until it passes and then stand and turn for the hall.  I walk back to the bathroom pausing just outside the door to listen for sounds of movement from my bedroom, instead I hear a faint snore so I slink back into the bathroom closing the door behind me.  I walk over to the scale and look at it in utter defeat.  

    “I can’t wait until you throw that thing away,” I hear my therapist’s voice swirling in my head.

    “The scale doesn’t measure health,” my dietitian’s voice chimes in.

    My therapist returns with, “it’s time, get rid of it, you are strong Melissa.” 

    I look down at the scale, bend over, and pick it up with both hands.  I stare at it’s blank face and suddenly I imagine I am somewhere else.  I am Kate Winslet standing against the bow of the Titanic, only instead of Leonardo Dicaprio I have my scale.  I have one arm swung out to my side just like Kate but the other is gripping my scale close to my body.  The wind is whipping at my face and the stark taste of salt is on my lips.  Half my body can feel the freedom of the air and all I have to do to feel it completely is drop my scale.  Drop it into the ocean so that both my arms can swing wide and finally be free, free to feel, free to be open, free to be loved.  A huge peaceful relief comes over my body and I slowly open my arm to release the scale.  I watch as it floats light as a feather down to the ocean’s surface.  It hits the waves without a splash and begins to sink. I can see it just under the surface of the water, but then I notice something, something is with it, something is sinking with it.  I see a thick dark line hooked on the corner of the scale and I follow it to the surface of the water and that is when I notice the rope.  The ship’s anchor rope is tied to the scale, and my eyes follow the rope up, up, up. I follow it up to the ship itself and over the rail behind me.  I turn to see a thick spiral of rope on the ship’s deck behind me, getting smaller and smaller, as the scale sinks deeper and deeper.  Coming out from under the spiral of rope is the other end and my eyes follow this end as it leads right to where I stand.   I don’t need to look down now to know it is tied around my ankle and I accept my fate as I am tethered to this scale for eternity. 

    Suddenly I am overboard, I am sinking by my ankle slowly and with a deep calm that I thought couldn’t exist.  I think about numbers, I think about calculations, I am tallying weights and measures in my head as I slowly sink down, down, down, as it gets darker, darker, and darker.  This is my underwater ballet, this is my slow descent.  Then I look down at the scale below through glimpses of light from the ship above, and I see the rope tethering us together.  I see the rope. I see the rope. Something sparks. Something moves. Something changes.  I see the rope tethering us together.  I am not the scale. The scale is not me.  I am not an audience member in this deadly underwater ballet.  For the first time I see the rope, I see Anorexia, I see her floating there in the ocean between the scale and I.  She was always there, always twisted around my leg so gracefully, so stealthily, that I couldn’t even see her, couldn’t even feel her, I thought she was me.  I am not the scale. I am not anorexia. I look down at my ankle and realize I can untie the rope.  I can let Anorexia sink with the scale.  Seeing the rope on my ankle and knowing it is not me but Anorexia I frantically dive downward and begin reaching and pulling at it.  I am pulling and scratching but it is not budging. I keep sinking deeper and darker. Finally, snap, I feel one hair of the thick rope break, one little scratchy hair.  

    I am back in my bathroom, back with my scale, it is still in my hands, still looking up at me with it’s blank eyes.  

    “Anorexia is not me. I am not Anorexia.” I hear it in my head, but then She speaks louder, telling me to get on the scale, to stop wasting time.

    “You need to check, you need to know, get on the scale, you have gained from the cookie, I am sure of it, you are too fat, you need to check, get on, get on, get on.”

    I set the scale on the floor. I am not Anorexia. She is not me.  I turn to walk away from the scale, from the rope, from Anorexia. As I walk toward the bathroom door I feel a rush of hot emotion that is so intolerable I slow myself.  Walking away from Anorexia is like turning on a waterfall of pain. With every step I take toward  the door I feel the crushing feeling of being wrong, of choosing wrong, and on top of all of the wrong, is an outpouring of emotional pain so crippling I cannot walk any further toward the door.  I stand frozen, but then the pain becomes unbearable and I retreat back to the scale.  I step on. I do my dance. I step off.  I step on again. I do my dance again. I step off again.  Then I turn toward the door, “just go, just go, just go, just go.”

    “Twice is enough. Twice is enough.  Twice is enough.  Twice is enough.” I am whispering aloud as I make my way out the door and to my bed.  I repeat this chant as I climb in and pull up the steaming covers.  Anorexia starts screaming at me that I did it wrong, that I must weigh three times, that now it doesn’t count.  I lie in bed for hours, afraid to move, afraid if I move I will give in, until finally sleep overtakes me.  

The next morning comes and I wake up. I painfully and with great effort rise to sit on the edge of the bed. I slowly make my way to the bathroom and weigh myself three times. Even though I weigh myself three times this morning, something in my brain is different. Anorexia does not refer to me as “I” anymore, she calls me “you”, and I much prefer that. I have scratched off the first fiber of the noose that is Anorexia. I see her not just underwater as I sink to my death, I see her now in the light of day. I recognize her everywhere, and I am not Anorexia, and Anorexia is not me.