I didn’t set out to be a liar, mind you. I became one through a combination of ignorance and bureaucracy. And yet, I have lied.
I lied to the state of California on my ID card. No, it’s not a drivers’ license. I don’t drive. I inherited my grandmother’s sense of direction and my mother’s night vision, which is to say I have neither at all. Beyond that, I have a tendency to panic when confused and an insurmountable habit of woolgathering. Putting me behind the wheel of a car is what is known in the business as a Bad Idea.
And yet I do need picture identification for a variety of reasons. So it was that I trotted down to spend a day waiting in line at the DMV.
Of course the thing one spends the second greatest amount of time doing at the DMV is filling out forms, so I had to do that as well. In addition to name, address, etc., the state of California expects you to tell them how tall you are and what you weigh. This was actually about a year and a half ago when I had to get my updated ID card, and I had not been on a set of scales in at least three years. Further, I had not been informed of what the scales said for several years prior to that. I knew how tall I was, but I really had no objective idea what I weighed.
Well, I’d lost weight since the last ID card had been issued, so I figured I’d put my weight down as some twenty-five pounds less than I had said the previous time. Said previous time, I had listed my weight at 200 pounds. I really didn’t know at the time whether or not this was in any way accurate. Mostly I knew I was fat and that sounded like a lot of weight to carry on a 5’2″ frame, so it seemed a reasonable ballpark guesstimate. Having lost some poundage, I figured I’d say I weighed 175 this time.
A couple months ago, as some of you may recall, I had to go to a doctor about a cold that had hung on way too long. At that appointment, I was weighed.
Imagine my surprise to realize I’d been lying about my weight on my ID card to the tune of some 62 pounds!
In practical terms, this makes no difference in my life. I fit in the same places, and fail to fit in the places I didn’t fit before. I am the same level of health, have the same interests, follow the same routine, hold the same job, and know the same people. Most of the time, it doesn’t make a difference mentally, either. I’m more concerned with my general feeling of well-being than meeting an arbitrary goal for the comfort of society. Finding out what I actually weighed was met with a mere ‘huh’ rather than concern or pride or any significant emotion. I still feel more pity than excitement for the girl in one of the weight loss product ads who proclaims that she was terrified before she found this miracle product that she was doomed to be fat forever. I am still fat. I am precisely as fat as I was. My life is still worth living.
But one thing does kind of bother me. I lied. Unwittingly, yes, but still. That niggles. I like to be accurate.
It also reinforces an important point: most of us have no clue what different weights look like. A quick glance at Kate Harding’s fabulous BMI Project tells us that we cannot always spot ‘overweight’ or ‘normal’ or ‘obese.’ We don’t know at a glance whether a person has a higher than average ratio of muscle to fat, we don’t always account for how a person’s shape affects how we perceive his/her weight. We don’t stop and think very often about how different 200 pounds might look on a 5′ body as opposed to a 6′ body.
On the other hand, it reinforces another more positive point in my mind: it’s not the number on the scales that matters, but how you choose to approach life.
At long last, I believe I am at peace with my dishonest past. Why? Because that one number doesn’t say a damn thing about what I can or cannot do with my future.
People’s perception of what you weigh is so off that I just have a number that would make people go “whoah, she’s a big girl”. They have no clue that it’s shy of my actual weight by 75+ pounds. I figure if it were that important, they’d weigh you at the DMV – I’ve never had anyone it’s accuracy.
Comment by Jewels — April 11, 2009 @ 4:50 pm
I haven’t changed the weight on my license since I got it almost 20 years ago. I lied then and I’m still lying. If no one ever looked at it I wouldn’t care but a lot of people do. I don’t need them to have that kind of information.
Comment by Linda — April 11, 2009 @ 6:17 pm
It’s such a fluctuating thing I can’t imagine why on earth it’d be relevant, to tell your the truth. Here in Australia they don’t care about anything but birthdate and whether or not you wear specs.
Comment by Lilli — April 11, 2009 @ 7:50 pm
I looked at the BMI project. I couldn’t guess their weights with a gun to my head and I don’t care. I do know that my husband would look at most of these women and think, “Yummy!”
Comment by class factotum — April 12, 2009 @ 10:03 am
It is at times like this that you need the weigh — ha — the virtue of not lying on one’s driver’s license versus the virtue of not standing in that DMV line again.
As for me, I’ll put whatever the heck they like on the card so long as I don’t have to go back any more often than once every four years.
Comment by sabrina — April 12, 2009 @ 7:51 pm
Had a friend’s step-father who lost a bunch of weight and I didn’t even notice. I lost 70 pounds (medical necessity…I’m still considered overweight, however). I could barely see a difference. I just don’t have the ability to judge weight changes. Don’t ask me why…in most other ways, I’m VERY observant.
Comment by that redhead — April 12, 2009 @ 11:20 pm
I’ve never lived in a state that required one to disclose one’s weight. I don’t have a scale, so unless they would supply me with one, I’d probably have to lie!
Comment by Never teh Bride — April 20, 2009 @ 9:15 pm
I got my first state-issued ID when I was 17. I lied about my height and my weight.
10 years later, I now live in a state that doesn’t require my weight on an ID(Yay Texas!), but I still lie about being 5’5″.
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