My Deal With The Devil

Every morning I sit on the edge of my bed wondering why I haven’t made a deal with the devil yet.

By the time I take the two groaning steps to my desk, I start considering terms.

Then again, maybe I already signed something years ago. Maybe this is the improved package.

Maybe this is what “better” looks like.

I think about that more than I probably should. Some days my soul feels so tired and worn down that I wonder if this is just what happens when parts of you slowly burn off over time. Not dramatically. Just gradually.

Then I look in the mirror and immediately switch to wondering why the love handles are still here.

If I already sold my soul, I feel like I should have at least gotten the deluxe package. New knees. Functional joints. A body that could kill. Something.

I hate looking in the mirror. I hate walking.

What’s especially cruel is that my brain finally seems interested in living again.

Now that some of the depression has loosened its grip, I actually want things. I want movement. Experiences. Connection. A future.

I just wish the body matched the remission happening in the old noggin.

As it turns out, when I lost all that weight from bariatric surgery, I didn’t just lose fat. I lost a critical amount of lean muscle mass too.

“Your muscles are wasting away because your blood protein levels are dangerously low,” my doctor told me, in that calm clinical tone doctors use when saying something that quietly detonates in your brain.

Let’s do some labs to see how much.

Which is one of those sentences that sounds reasonable and terrifying at exactly the same time.

It makes sense, though. My core strength is practically nonexistent now. It takes me longer than it should to get into bed and out of it. To shower. To put on clothes. Every movement feels slightly over-negotiated, like my body wants a meeting before approving basic human activity.

Don’t get me wrong. I lost the weight. I gained some back, sure, but I’ve plateaued and have slowly started creeping down again.

My goal now is to get under 200 pounds and maintain it long enough for insurance to hopefully approve skin removal surgery.

Yeah. Skin removal.

One of those phrases that sounds fictional until it becomes part of your actual life.

Apparently if my protein really is that low, the answer is strength training combined with the high-protein, low-carb diet I’m already on.

And I just loooooove exercise. Especially when every joint in my body files a formal complaint at the exact same time.

I can daydream all I want about traveling someday. Or taking a morning walk. Or hiking. Or feeling spontaneous again. But right now those things feel very far away.

Mostly because there’s no magic bullet waiting to suddenly give me my strength back overnight. Unless my testosterone is low again, in which case apparently my body and I will be entering yet another deeply humiliating side quest.

And yeah, I know recovery like this doesn’t happen quickly. I know that.

It’s slow. Tedious. Repetitive.

Doing something I hate consistently in order to maybe feel a little better later.

My mind finally wants expansion again. Dating. Travel. Movement. Flirting. Live music. Experiences. Becoming a person again.

My body, meanwhile, would like a chair. A heating pad. And preferably me horizontal.

Honestly, though, maybe documenting this part is good for me. Maybe that’s the next angle for this journal.

Not just emotional survival anymore, but physical reconstruction too.

Trying to build a body that can carry the version of me that finally wants to live again.

Maybe the devil didn’t offer me a deluxe package after all.

Maybe all I got was a second chance with complicated terms and conditions.

A body held together with protein shakes, physical therapy, lab work, heating pads, and stubbornness.

Still, I suppose the fact that I’m trying to renegotiate means some part of me plans on sticking around.

I don’t actually know how much strength I can get back.

I don’t know if my body will ever feel like mine again in the way I want it to.

But for the first time in a long time, I at least care enough to try.

So if you see me walking with a cane or riding around Walmart in an electric cart, just know this probably isn’t the final form.

At least I hope not.

Maybe strength isn’t getting your old body back.

Maybe it’s waking up every day in a body that hurts, in a life that became smaller than you wanted, and still deciding to negotiate for more anyway.