The Keeper

“Mavis, Julie, Wendi!  Please come here.”

“Okay Daddy, I’m coming.”

It was a Sunday Morning. We were busily going about our typical routine to get ready for church.  But, when Dad called, it wasn’t an option to say “Just a minute.”  So, My Mom, my sister and I dropped what we were doing and filed into the bedroom.  He was standing there with a clip board tucked under his arm, looking very resolute about something that was to be a complete surprise to me.

My father was a Marine, and even though he had long been out of the Corps, he was a Marine through and through.  That often lent itself to a boot camp type atmosphere around the house. None of us were sure why Dad had called us in.  I just knew that I was suddenly awash in anxiety which came with a nauseous dread in the pit of my stomach.

His announcement began with, “I am going to help everyone in this house with their weight.  So, we’re all going on a diet and I am going to keep a chart of our weights, including mine.”  My heart sank.  I wanted to run into the bathroom and throw up.  But, all I could do is stand there and take my marching orders.  In my patriarchal household, resistance was futile. My mother and I were clearly overweight.  My baby sister and my father were what I would judge to be of fairly normal build. He held up the clip board with a grid drawn on it and outlined his plan.  Every Sunday morning, while we were still in our underwear getting ready for church, we were to stand in line and have our weights charted. We could lose the weight any way we wanted, but on weigh-in days he expected progress.  I was mortified.

No matter how hard I tried, this very stressful, dad-enforced diet backfired. Sunday mornings became the entire fixation of my existence.  I was 16 and an honor student in high school, yet I had no idea how to “diet.”  The guidance I was given was “just stop eating when you’re satisfied.”  Well, what in the heck does THAT mean?  I was never satisfied.  I had a hunger that absolutely gnawed at my soul.  But who would believe that?  It would be seen as weakness or lameness of mind if I were to confess such a thing; much less ask for help. I wasn’t the only one struggling. My sister, a pre-teen, most likely began her 20-year fight with the disease of anorexia during this time. My mother remained quiet and tried to help us as much as she could without upsetting the balance in the house.  She was under as much scrutiny as the rest of us.

I was humiliated to trot my fat, nearly naked adolescent body in front of my father on a weekly basis to have it judged by him.  I was already deeply ashamed of my body and my inability to get control of my weight issues.  Dad’s marine routine cemented my shame into an even deeper place in my psyche, as if a dentist were filling a cavity without clearing the underlying decay.

I may as well have been naked as I stood there waiting to be weighed, because I felt stripped bare of any dignity that I may have ever had.  I felt nauseated each time my turn came up to get my weight charted.  The nausea was partner to my shame as well as to the fear that I felt because I knew I was failing. While I was on the boot camp diet, my weight climbed to over 200 pounds for the first time ever.  At the age of 16, my battle with the disease of morbid obesity had begun in earnest.  Each week, as I was paraded into the restroom to stand before that small, white, mechanical box on the floor, my lifelong, mortal struggle with The Keeper was emblazoned onto my reality.

The Keeper. 

The Keeper of approval, love and acceptance.  

I just knew that if I could make The Keeper’s numbers go DOWN, then I could finally get the unconditional acceptance from my father that I so deeply desired.  But, the keeper was stubborn; relentless even.  Those numbers would only go up as it tortured me with the scrolling sound of its wheel spinning furiously to that horrible threshold of 200 pounds.  I thought I could trick The Keeper by putting more pressure on one foot to make the wheel slide just a tiny bit lower.  However, my father, The Marine, made me stand up straight, with my shoulders back.  HE wanted to read the wheel and announce the findings of The Keeper.  Oh God, could this get any worse?

The boot camp diet was eventually abandoned.  Even my father could identify a failed strategy.  He was a smart businessman.  Of course, he blamed the failure on the execution of the plan, not the plan itself. Graciously, very little was said as the diet was abandoned.  It just kind of dwindled away.  I held my breath every Sunday morning for months wondering if we were suddenly going to be called into the bathroom again.  I moved around very quietly in the house trying not to remind him that we were there or that he forgot to weigh us.  I only breathed again when I slipped out the front door to leave for church having escaped another confrontation with The Keeper.

The Keeper. 

The Keeper of joy, optimism, and youthful exuberance. 

Not long after I escaped the enforced diet, a buzz of excitement filled my teenage imaginations.  We were going to get NEW band uniforms for my marching band.  This was the news of the century as far as I was concerned.  The old uniforms were staunchy, stiff, wool, military style uniforms that were way out of style with the hip, cool drum and bugle corps style that “everybody” was wearing at the time.  We were going to be the coolest band at competition.  We were going to WOW the hometown crowd when we took the field for half-time. And, I was finally going to have a uniform that fit correctly because I was going to have one ordered especially for me. 

My heart sank when I found out that we weren’t just going to order band uniforms by clothing size.  We had to be measured for these uniforms.  I panicked as I thought of someone having to write down my overblown measurements on a sheet of paper.  It was WAY too close to the clipboard experience. And anyway….. who knew what person may have access to those numbers.  My true girth might be exposed world.  The entire band would know how huge I actually was.

Through my panic, I thought of every way possible to skip out on the day of measuring.  I obsessed about ways to feign illness or injury. But the catch was that I still wanted my uniform.  I had to get measured to get a uniform.  So, I decided to go with my most familiar response… fake it. I bounded into the band room as if nothing were wrong.  We were all supposed to be really excited about these new uniforms, so I had to put on my best face.  As I burst through the double doors full of affected zeal, I was stopped dead in my tracks by a wave of old, familiar nausea.  The room was filled with band members, chairs, stands, and instruments, but I instantly had a singular focus. Between the two band moms with measuring tapes around their neck, stood The Keeper.

The Keeper completely colored my experience with measuring day.  I had steeled myself for the tape measures.  I had even prepared for the clipboard.  But The Keeper stood there, judging me.  My world collapsed inwardly as I attempted to keep my composure and not expose how nauseous I had become.  The Keeper jeered at me. I heard its metal weights clank as a fellow clarinet players had her measurements taken.  Of course, SHE was petite.  It was as if I was being taunted by The Keeper while I waited for my turn.  There was no privacy; it was all out in the open.  I found as many reasons as I could to look busy doing other things around the band room before I actually stepped into line.  I hoped that the others would be finished and be on their way, leaving fewer witnesses to my measuring.  

I finally stepped up on The Keeper’s platform, defeated and embarrassed.  My eyes pleaded with the band mom not to reveal what The Keeper said.  She understood and quickly scrambled the weights after getting a reading.  But, what I saw elated me.  It was horrible, but I was ecstatic!  There was ONE girl in the trumpet section that was fatter that me!!  I wasn’t the fattest girl in the band!  I was the 2^nd fattest girl in the band.  Nobody cares about the 2^nd anything!  The 2^nd runner-up is invisible! It is the ONLY time in my achievement-driven life that 2^nd was not only acceptable, but desirable.  I was so deeply relieved that my knees nearly crumpled below me.  And I cringe as I write this because I didn’t even feel bad about what the other girl was going to have to endure.

The Keeper is supposedly a mechanical device used to measure a person’s weight.  But, I was sharply aware that it measures far more than weight.  It measures the character of a person.  Surely a person of high moral character would be able to control herself enough to stop stuffing food in her mouth.  A person of high moral character would not sneak food to secretly salve the feelings that were not otherwise permitted to be addressed. A moral person would not LIE about how much food she was really consuming.  The Keeper measures a person’s relationship with God.  A truly committed Christian would not abuse the temple of the Holy Spirit with such overindulgence, such gluttony.  A person who was fully sold out to God would be able to pray enough to withstand temptation.   If a person was living a genuine Christian life, then they would be able to do “all things through Christ which strengthens them.”  The Keeper reminded me every day that I was a failure at being strong enough in Christ to defeat this particular demon.

The Keeper is a thief, a liar, a judge, an accuser, and a dictator.  It steals my joy, declares me a failure, exposes my transgressions, and makes the determination as to whether I am a good girl or a bad girl. It keeps all that I am wrapped up in the spin of its wheel.  If only that wheel wouldn’t spin so far, then I would BE a better person.  I could prove, once and for all, that the accolades I receive for my piano, for academics, for my clarinet, for my voice, for Beta Club, for being a nice person and a good Christian, for being helpful, funny, witty, smart ..… that those are not accolades given to a stark imposter.  I reasoned that I couldn’t possibly be a person who excels at everything and so clearly fails in the eyes of The Keeper. 

These beliefs of my teenage years not only spilled over into my life as a young adult, they became a tsunami of unhealthy thoughts, coping skills and behaviors.  I was embroiled in addiction, an undiagnosed mental illness, ever worsening morbid obesity, and a family that moved from crisis to crisis (usually complements of my baby sister). The scales remained my enemy for decades.  I roamed from diet to diet trying to make those stupid numbers go down.  I finally swore off the scale.  I wouldn’t step on one for any reason. I even stopped going to doctors so that I would not have to face a scale.   The Keeper completely and utterly broke my will to address my weight in any kind of constructive or healthy way.  The Keeper won.

Gratefully, recovery happens.  The full story of my recovery comes in other written chapters of my life.  However, this particular journal entry would feel incomplete were I to leave it on the penultimate chord of the symphony.  So, I will skip over a few of the movements and jump right to the coda for now.

As I approach mid-life, there is no longer a reality in my life called “the keeper.”  Through much work, effort, soul searching, and internal remodeling, coupled with many extra helpings of the grace of God, the keeper’s voice has far less power.  I have not come to a complete peace with scales. However, there is on most days, a cautious truce. The scales are not my friend, but they are no longer the mortal enemy. They do not carry the personification of being the keeper because I have recaptured their fiefdom.  I no longer allow them the power of swallowing my hopes and dreams in a rotating dial, a digital readout or a sliding weight.  I also understand that my father, though misguided, was doing all that he knew to help us with a problem.   I have long since forgiven him.  

I still struggle with weight, obesity and body image.  And to some degree, I believe that I probably always will.  However, this is a far cry from allowing a mechanical device to judge me as an inferior being that is of poor character and limited intelligence. I don’t have to do that any more.  I have a choice to be free from that judgment.  And, I at least now know that I have a choice to live daily in a very simple understanding about scales; an understanding that brings the numbers on its face into life-affirming perspective:  Scales merely measure one of many indicators related to the overall health of my body.  They measure my weight.  They do not measure me.