You know that old saying — that you go to war with the army you have? I think the assertion contains a salutary bit of wisdom that, at least for me, surfaces too often in the breach.

The last few days have been a bit melancholy. Not in a bad or debilitating way, but more in a “what if?” sense that’s probably more adolescent #FOMO than anything, even though I’ve been riding the situation’s logic train for almost a week now. The proximate cause of this thinking is isn’t worth relaying here. The upshot, though, is that I caught myself going through some sort of Kübler-Ross cycle, wherein I saw X, pretended it was Y, got pissed that it really was X, resolved to do Z, realized that Z was not a short-term solution … then I understood that X wasn’t any of my business and that Y and Z were fundamentally irrational responses, anyway.

So there’s that.

But.

The whole “Z” resolution — even though it’s a valid idea that’s actually been on my to-do list for a few years now — has sat on that to-do list for reasons that (it just occurred to me!) are both good and bad.

The “Z” resolution, to be less cryptic, is to get back to my “trim” weight. Long-time blog readers know the story, but for the n00bz out there, the TL;DR version is: In my teens and into my late 20s, I was morbidly obese. Then I lost about half my bodyweight over a year and a half and even did late-night long-distance runs for fun. I kept the pounds off for several years, then gained a goodly chunk of it back after a long-untreated bout of serious Vitamin D deficiency. Since that D thing stabilized, my weight has been constant; a quick perusal of MyFitnessPal shows that the last four or so years have been a weight plateau.

The plateau is higher than I want, hence the goal to get back to around 160. Which is eminently doable, although it’s not lost on me that there’s a strong correlation between my BMI and the atrociousness of my weekly schedule. And there are lots of good reasons for a second round of weight loss: Improved cardiovascular performance. Lower risk of heart failure and stroke. Lower risk of type-2 diabetes. Reduced odds of breaking a chair when you sit on it.

But there’s also a “bad” reason for losing weight, which for me is rooted in the fact that I’m not attracted to people who look like me. Ergo, I subconsciously consider myself unattractive; ergo² it’s been quite a few years since I’ve made any serious attempt at cultivating physical or emotional human intimacy.

It occurs to me that some people do find me attractive. I know it’s true; I do get some attention on those rare occasions I foray into the Vast Online Meatmarket of various personals apps.

You go to war with the army you have. You wade into the dating pool with the profile you have. Not everyone wins every battle, but your odds of winning here and there are significantly higher if you march toward the field than if you never venture from the safety of your camp in the first place.

A lesson to remember.