Saturday, January 1, 2011

1. the year of the gentleman

it all started with a scale. this scale, to be exact...

i've never been one for scales. or checking my weight. or keeping track of my weight or doing anything to maintain my weight, for that matter. i just tell people i weigh what i think (and hope) i weigh and leave it at that. so normally i wouldn't begin a story with a scale. but i saw this scale at bed bath & beyond and couldn't help myself. it's handsome. sexy, even. masculine with a touch of zen. and i had to have it.

so i whipped out my wad of newly acquired christmas money (thanks mom and dad - money is always exciting, no matter how old you get), handed it over to the cashier, and bought it - this scale, for my bathroom. my brother, who was with me at the time and buying himself a game storage ottoman for his new apartment (and his new xbox), laughed at me. my brother, the personal trainer, who's practically lived at the gym for the past eight months, who has always been well aware of his weight (and his body mass index and his diet) laughed at me. i think he figured i'd take myself out to mcdonald's with my christmas money. but no. i bought myself a scale.

in my head, it was all for my fiance anyways. well, it was for the both of us, because i figured since i am approaching thirty it might be nice to start taking better care of myself, but it was with him in mind that i actually made the purchase. once the holiday season started up, so did rob's talks of tightening up both his diet and his abs after the new year. so when i saw this scale, i thought buying it would be a nice gesture of support for his resolution (because as much as i hate to admit it, i might not always be the most supportive).

but once i got the scale home and out of the box, it suddenly took on new meaning for me. i found that every time i'd step into the bathroom, i'd step up on the wooden boards to check my weight. it started out of excitement, that new purchase joy that causes everything new to become a toy that must be played with as much and as often as possible. but then it turned into something else. genuine curiosity must have taken over, i think, because i started asking questions like how much weight do i shed when i take off my clothes? how much weight to i lose when i use the bathroom? that sort of thing. but something else happened. the scale had become something else. something more.

it had become a beacon. a beam of light that found its way into all of the dark corners in my life and brightened my eyes to who i was slowly becoming. something as simple as a fucking bathroom scale managed to make me realize that my life, if i stayed on the track i was on, would spiral out of control and into oblivion. and i realized that change was necessary.

now before i go any further, i have to say that this isn't about my weight. sopping wet i weigh 153 lbs (trust me, i weighed myself last week after a shower) which is well within the normal parameters of my healthy height/weight ratio. no, this is about something else. it's about my attitude. it's about how i approach life. not knowing my weight is a sort of metaphor. everyone should know how much they weigh. you don't need to check it all the time, but you still need to know. until i bought this scale, i have no idea when was the last time i actually checked.

somewhere around turning 16, i picked up the philosophy that everything happens for a reason and it has stuck with me ever since. over a decade later i've learned how to use that philosophy to justify absolutely everything that happens to me and in turn how to let go of virtually all responsibility, even for something as banal as knowing how much i weigh. looking down at that bathroom scale opened my eyes to this face. somehow this scale managed to show me so much more than just how much mass gravity is pulling into the earth. it opened my eyes to my bad habits, to my faults, and to everything i don't want to be.

so it was that scale that started it all. that forced me to take the first step into a journey i plan on pursuing this year. it was this scale that has inspired my newfound dedication to being the best possible man i can be and not just the mediocre version of myself i've become. everything may happen for a reason, but that doesn't mean i have to resign myself to just accept it. somehow this philosophy (with probably a dozen other factors adding into the mix) has created an apathetic monster.

an apathetic monster i will be no more...

so i have dubbed 2011 the year of the gentleman. i'm not entirely sure what that entails. i have no outline, no hypothesis. i don't even know who i'm going to be by the end of the year. but with my thirtieth birthday a few years away, my quarter life crisis finally behind me, and my wedding to the man i love more than life coming up later this year, it's time i finally step out of adolescence and into adulthood. no longer will i be the eternal teenager, but a gentleman.

so here we go.

No comments:

Post a Comment