Fear of (weight or weight loss) Disclosure

A friend just asked me: will I post my weight or my weekly weight loss on the blog? Fair question. With no easy answer.

Because what my weight is or how much I need to lose scares the bejesus of out me. I’m a gal who is pretty darn open. I will crack a joke about anything; I’ll admit fault just about any time. I’ll poke fun at myself and be honest about who I am. But the weight thing. How can I explain it? I think my bungee jumping story sums it up.

That’s right, as I mentioned earlier, I bungee jumped. It was about 1993, I believe, and I sort of backed my ego into a corner from which the only escape was bungee jumping. I was planning a trip to Ontario, to do a travel piece for the daily newspaper I was working for at the time. I read somewhere that they had bungee jumping at a park called Ontario Place. Learning that, I immediately announced to anyone who would listen – co-workers, family, friends, cashiers, fellow train riders – that I was going to be bungee jumping from a 200-foot tower over water.

Now, this was at a unique time – wedged just between when bungee jumping was the new hot thing (about the exact time of my discovery and announcement) and the time that bungee jumpers suddenly began – one after another, making headlines by dying (about a day before my jump was scheduled).

So by the time I got to Ontario Place, cognitive Moira knew that jumping from a 200-foot tower with a cord around her ankles was not a bright idea. But egotistical Moira knew everyone back home – at work, in the house, at the store, on the bus – was saying “She’ll never do it.” Egotistical Moira is much louder than Cognitive Moira. So I had to jump.

But here’s the thing. The “tower,” once I see it, is really just a thin tower of scaffolding with a shelf of scaffolding sticking out at the top of it. Can you picture that? If I ever get around to having the video of it transferred to DVD, I’ll post it here. In fact, I’m gonna do that. But I digress.

So I see this flimsy “tower,” AND the iron ladder running up it and realize quickly: this is not so good. But I press on.

I sign up, pay my $100 (every 10th jump is free!), and here comes the absolutely horrifying part; the part that still scars me to this day: they weighed me. And then wrote my weight on the back on my hand in big, black indelible ink marker. There it was, no way to remove it (even by rubbing in some of the falling rain on my hand. Did I mention it was raining?). I could not ignore it, and the world would see it. Still, Egotistical Moira pushed on.

So I climb the ladder. Now, picture looking up a ladder that is at a 90 degree angle to the earth and is really just rod iron – and is being rained on. So what, you think, if you slip the harness they have tethered to you catches you before any real danger, right? Wrong. No harness. Just you, your hands and feet and each rung above you.

The good news is, the Lamaze breathing I never used despite having two kids seemed to be helping. I stared straight ahead of me – so as not to see below, above or worse, to my hand where my weight was written, and climbed. It took a good 20 minutes. Do you have any idea how high 200 feet really is? It’s the same as about a 20 story building. Climb that flimsy ladder, I say.

So I get to the top and the guy in charge of picking the right cord for my weight must have looked at my hand. What did he said? I have no idea. The moment was so truly terrifying, I have blocked it from my conscience. I remember his accent – it was like Ahh-nold Swartznaggers. he first wraps a kind of dishraggish towel around my ankles, and then the cord he has chosen for me. He loops it around twice and then through my legs to kind of catch it.

“That’s it?” I ask, and yes I am incredulous. ‘You vill be fine!” he says, and helps me hop to the edge. It took me some time to get up the nerve, but finally, with the Toronto Sky Dome as my target, I agree they can do the “bungee countdown.”

Oh, did I forget to mention that whenever someone is brave enough to bungee, they blow a horn and the hundreds –even more – of people enjoying the park all stop and look up and do a countdown? (one of my friends I’ve made on this trip is on the ground and, as the crowd looks up at me her heart swells with pride as she hears one guy say to another, “Cool, look, a girl is bungee jumping!” (I am woman, she thinks!) Until the friend responds, “I know, let’s watch! Maybe her shirt will fly up!” so much for girl power.)

So I give Ahh-nold the go-ahead and he waves to the crowd. The start the count and in my head, I count with them. “10, 9, 8., oh my god am I really going to do this 7, 6, 5, me and my big mouth, 4, 3, 2, 1, bungeeee!” I do an absolutely perfect swan dive straight at the Sky dome. I’m flying. And falling. I free fall until the cord is stretched to its end and then boing back up again – higher than I started (this is a surprise. In the end I bounce up and plunge back down about five times until the cord is exhausted.) they lower me into a small boat waiting for me, and the guy in it takes me to short. The crowd waits for me to stand on terra firma again. I do, and as they cheer, I make sure to put my hand in my pocket.

They might see my weight. I can still feel the panic about that to this day. The freefall? Not a vivid a memory.

So that might explain where I am at with the weight posting. I wonder if I will change my mind in time. I think not. Because I don’t think my goal has a number. Instead, I think it has a feeling. I’ll feel fit and comfortable. I’ll slip into clothes that I like from stores that I like. I’ll feel roomy even in a coach seat. I’m not sure a number can really sum that up.

Are you brave enough to share your weight or weight loss? Can you convince me to? Or does it even matter?