The Deals I Make with Myself

Dearest Rachel –

It’s still pitch black when I open my eyes this morning for the first time. Without even looking at the clock on my nightstand, my superego points out that I probably have just enough time to throw on shorts and a t-shirt, and head out to the fitness center for a workout. After all, it reminds me, I didn’t manage to fast yesterday, as I had planned to do for each week this coming month that I’m assigned to work the booth, and Daniel and I would be on our own for Sunday dinner.

You can probably figure out by now that my superego and I don’t get along all that much.

I counter by pointing out that it wasn’t exactly my idea to break my fast after yesterday’s services. When the folks offer to meet us for dinner, Daniel and I are going to be there, regardless of plans we might have – which, when you come down to it, aren’t really plans at all. In fact, one of the places they offer to meet us happens to be where Daniel had in mind to go to on his own, so that’s what the four of us do.

“Well, you could have gone without ordering anything, like your dad did,” my superego responds.

Did I mention we don’t get along?

All protestations from him that he’s gotten accustomed to not eating, thanks to the swallowing issues he developed over the year he spent recovering from sepsis, I have no doubt that if his doctors would clear him to do so, he would be more than happy to go back to eating, rather than being fed through a gastric tube. You might remember a shirt that Daniel has, bearing the legend “om-nom-nom” (the Cookie Monster’s eating noise), that he vowed not to wear until ‘Poppa’ could join us for a Thanksgiving meal; it’s still gathering dust in his closet, after four years of non-use. For my conscience to use him as an example of what I should be doing is, to put it mildly, hitting below the belt.

Besides, I’d already gone some twenty-plus hours already without eating, having last done so just before rehearsal on Saturday. It may not have been a full day, but it should have been considered close enough to pass.

My superego, however, is not in a particularly forgiving mood (although, in fairness to it, forgiveness isn’t exactly in its job description). “Okay, but what about that bowl of cup ramen and those cookies you had last evening? You didn’t just fall off the wagon at lunchtime, you didn’t bother to get back on for the rest of the day, either.”

I really don’t feel like having this argument right now. In fact, I don’t feel like doing anything right now – which, ironically enough, is why we’re having this argument. One of the things about this regimen my superego is trying to set for me is that I find myself running out of energy too soon in the evening, causing me to head to bed earlier than I really think I ought to, and thus wake up at such a ridiculous hour as this, with nothing better to do that to go work out. If it weren’t for the fact that it’s not in my nature to plan things out (and my superego, for all my imagination to the contrary, is still a part of me), I’d think it was playing a game of fourth-dimensional chess with me, to force me to concede that I might as well go and do what it insists I need to do, regardless of whether I truly want to. Meanwhile, I’m trying to force me circadian rhythm into a more reasonable template, allowing myself to be able to stay awake just a few hours longer; if nothing else, I need to be able to stay awake, if I ever find a candidate for the role of Megumi. It’s not like dates tend to happen at the crack of dawn, after all.

Finally, I make a concession to my inner physical trainer. While I’d really rather not even bother to get up at all, after all this internal back-and-forth, I have to use the bathroom. If my lifestyle over the past day or two has been as unhealthy as my superego claims, I should probably be heavier than I was, say, yesterday morning, when I was in the middle of that aborted fast. “Tell you what; if I’m at 242.5,” – which is, admittedly, a pound and a half heavier than I was yesterday morning, so I’m giving myself a lot of wiggle room – “I’ll do what you say, and head out to the gym. Less than that, and I go back to bed. Okay?”

These are the deals that I make with myself these days.

It’s almost surprising that my conscience accepts this deal; apparently, it seems to think that a single sandwich and some soup for an entire day is enough for me to gain weight. “Don’t forget the cookies, though,” it reminds me. “And the lemonade. And the pastry bar. And –”

“All right, all right!” The bathroom is dark (since I don’t want to completely wake up yet if I’m right), save for the nightlight casting a bluish hue throughout the room, but it’s enough for me to read the numbers on the scale if I pick it up and peer at it (which, blind as I am naturally, I have to do anyway).

Two hundred forty… point five. That’s actually less than when I first got up yesterday.

I’ve won. I can go back to bed. I send my pouting conscience a note that I might – just might – still stop by the gym on the way home from the ‘office,’ but for now, I’m going to get some more sleep.

It’s not even an hour later, after what feels like an interminable period, that I sense it gloating over me as I finally give up and drag myself out of bed. All that arguing with myself basically woke me up, and I couldn’t get the extra sleep that I really thought I needed. My superego may not have gotten what it wanted out of this bargain, but it seems to have made sure I didn’t get what I wanted, either.

Did I mention we don’t get along?

I don’t know if you ever had any such fights with your own supposedly better nature, honey, but I hope you’d understand what this is like regardless. For now, though, if you’d keep an eye on me, and wish me luck, I’d appreciate it. I’m going to need it.