The scale has never been a friend of mine. I’ve spent a large portion of my life feeling unattractive and unworthy of attention because of my weight. A lot of the people in my life know this about me. There are other reasons that the scale has never been my friend. For the last two years, the biggest reason I’ve hated the scale is that the number on it dictated to me whether or not I could go after my dream of becoming a United States Marine. Until last night…the number always said, “No. You can’t.”

I’ve lost a LOT of weight in the last year and a half – a little over 70 pounds. I realized, last night after work, that I had gotten close enough to the goal that I needed to go into my recruiters’ office and get serious again. I took the hour-long drive in rush hour traffic to the opposite corner of the Denver Metro Area where my USMC recruiting offices are. I walked in with as much courage as I could muster, and was greeted rather warmly by one Marine that I had already met and by a second, to whom I had only spoken over the phone. These are the men that will put me into USMC Recruit Training.

My recruiters, Staff Sergeant Burrus and Gunnery Sergeant Veck, understand my situation, and I have to give them credit for the tact and bearing they’ve shown in handling my hesitance and my fear. After briefly reviewing my scores, my specialty choices, and my other options, they gently (well, as gently as Marines can be expected do things) led me down a hallway in the back of the office to record my weight on a little card that recruiters use to keep track of such information. An ominous-looking doctor’s scale was just looming there at the end of the hall like some sort of executioner waiting for me to put my neck down on a block. I felt like a death row inmate on my final march. I truly believed that I would throw up or collapse before we got there. I stood on the scale and looked over at SSgt. Burrus, who was on my right. I furrowed my brow and said, “Hold your breath.” SSgt. was kind enough to let me move the sliding weights so that I would be the first to see the verdict. GySgt. Veck was wise enough to stand back and remain silent. I moved the large block over to the 150# notch from habit and realized, when the bar crashed down with a very loud clang, that I was no longer sentenced to that slot on the scale. I apologized under my breath for the clatter, forgetting, in that moment, that I was in the presence of two Marines who would not be able to figure out for the life of them what in the hell I was apologizing for. I drew breath and moved the block down to the 100# notch on the bar. The bar leveled at 139 pounds. Fully clothed and wearing tennis shoes, that scale said 139 pounds. I couldn’t believe it.

There is a scale, just like the one I used with SSgt. Burrus and GySgt. Veck, in a small USMC recruiting office in St. Louis, Missouri. When I was forced in late 1998, practically kicking and screaming, to stand on that scale…the verdict was not so kind. Neither was the Marine standing next to me when the verdict was read. That slide stopped at 210, and I wanted to cry. The only thing that stopped me was the stark awareness that I was in the presence of men who did not want me there, anymore, and that I needed to maintain some modicum of dignity to walk out of the office. Instead of working with me, they were going to write me off. That was one of the most horrifying days of my life. I’ve done some embarrassing things in my life, but standing on that scale in St. Louis and suffering the disapproval of a man I had gone to, in earnest, for help…well, that was the cherry on the cake. I vowed to prove those Marines wrong – to show them, one day, that I would do it.

I have wanted to be a Marine for so long, now, that I can’t remember wanting anything else. I always believed that the scale was my only obstacle. Now, as SSgt. Burrus said, last night, “The scale is my friend.” There is still fear, though. I stayed up half the night trying to figure out why I’m afraid. The weight is gone. It’s over. I can go now. I can be a Marine, now. That should be cause for jumping up and down with happiness, right? So why am I still paralyzed with fear? I came up with two things…and they both made me angry enough with myself that I felt the pilot light ignite:

First, I’m in the habit of yearning for something that I truly believed that I could never achieve. When it becomes normal to feel that you can’t…it’s hard to adjust to someone telling you that you can. Anything abnormal or “changed” is frightening to people. Humans are creatures of habit, and I fall victim to that trait just the same as anyone else. I’m determined to rise above that, though.

Second, and this is the clincher, my weight was an excuse for a lot of things in my life. It was my excuse for not trying new things. It was my excuse for not being disciplined in my appearance. It was my excuse for remaining silent in public instead of being outward and friendly. I could find, in almost any situation in my life, a reason to blame my weight, or to use my weight as an excuse, for almost anything. I truly thought it was the only thing that was wrong in my life. Now that the pounds are gone…I’m having to own up to a lot of things that I used to hide from behind my weight. Everything I’m afraid of is right here staring me down, now. I’m am deeply afraid of failing, and if I fail at this, I can no longer blame it on a scale.

So…I’ve done a lot of work. I’ve come a long way. I’ve done what a lot of people never do. I’ve become almost half the woman I was two years ago, and I’m now able to go after my life dream of a career with the USMC. There is now, before me, an entirely new kind of work to be done. It’s just as difficult as the work that I’ve already completed, but it’s different now…because, this time, the scale cannot be blamed for my shortcomings. No guts, no glory, right? I’m on my way to a new place in this life…and as I teach myself to feel the fear and charge ahead, anyway; I know that each day will make me stronger. I have to believe that life is worth the fear – that I am worth the fear.

Someday, later on this year, a Marine will press into the palm of my hand a little black emblem that will mean more to me than I can fully understand, right now. That day will be the defining moment of my young life. It will be, to me, the proof that I used my youth wisely and that I didn’t waste what I was given. I’ve been given the rarely bestowed privilege of knowing, without doubt, what I want to do with my life. All I have to do now…is go and get it.

Carpe Diem

From the Pen of Aspen Lowood
January 11, 2001
11:39am, MST










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