In April I submitted our family’s picture to Wet and Wild, Oahu’s family water park. They were looking for families to film/ photograph to update their marketing and the payout was high: seasons passes for the whole family, and our kids would get birthday party vouchers. Hi, I have twins. Birthdays are stupid expensive. Where do I sign up?

I heard back a few days later that we got picked. Originally I thought they just wanted to photograph the kids, and so I was surprised when our whole family was asked to sign a release. I guess it makes sense… an accurate picture of “water park days” for advertising purposes would be “smiling” (overstimulated) kids AND their “happy” (exhausted/hot/annoyed) parents. No problem.- we can handle this. 

The week of the photoshoot rolled around and we were told to wear tropical/bright swimsuits. Weirdly enough, I didn’t put too much thought about getting photographed in a swimsuit, I was still thinking about the kids (actually all of this sounds normal). In haste, I ordered a pretty floral rash guard I found online and hoped for the best. A few days later it showed up at my door and I ran upstairs to try it on. Despite still needing to lose the rest of the “baby” weight (3 years later and he still gets blamed) it fit me perfectly. And you know what? I didn’t hate it. I didn’t immediately curl into a ball and think “WHAT HAVE I DONE?!” In fact, I gave myself a little snap in the mirror and thought: okay, I can handle this.

Unfortunately for me, feeling good about myself isn’t just about what I see in the mirror. It’s also about some stupid digital numbers. Suddenly I wanted to get on the scale. If I felt this good, I must have lost weight, right? Maybe this was the start of my skinny girl era and the scale and I were about to be BFFs for the first time in months (years). I envisioned a happy moment between the scale and I: where she says the *~magic number~* and I beam back happily in return. But before I stepped on her cold snarky face, I stopped myself. I FELT GOOD. WHY did it matter what the scale said?

Why do I do this to myself? Why does the way I feel about my body have to directly reflect a number on scale? What would have happened if I had gotten on that scale and it read higher than I “wanted” it to? Would I have felt less worthy of feeling good about myself? How messed up is that?

So I didn’t. I did not allow myself to look at the number on the scale. It didn’t matter. I felt happy and confident and we all ended up having a blast at the photoshoot. I’m not sure I would have felt the same if I had weighed myself. Most likely I would have been self conscious, sulky, and would have tried my best to stay away from the photographer. I’m glad I didn’t. It’s been fun to see us randomly pop up in an ad from time to time. 

Yes, the scale still haunts me. I would be lying if I said I don’t worry about her opinion: it’s all I’ve ever known. But what if I stopped giving her so much power? It might be nice if I could love myself without needing confirmation from a cold, one sided, hater.