Rumspringa

"Oh God..."

For the sake of clarity, I should say, this wasn't an actual prayer. Although it was something of an existential crisis.

Not many people, as far as I know, have an existential crisis in the ice-cream aisle. But I had one tonight.

"Not gonna happen," said d as I fondled - there's no other word for it - a tub of Ben & Jerry's new Cookie Dough Core ice-cream...
"No?" I asked, turning it round and round in my hands, thinking..."It could happen....It soooooo could happen..."
"No," said d, before re-thinking her position. "Well, I mean...you're an adult..."
Normally, this works. It refocuses me on the goal, and I can walk away. This has worked in even the most extreme cases of provocation...like an AMERICAN ice-cream aisle.

Tonight though, it didn't work.
"It's kinda like...like something I have to get out of my system," I explained, holding open the door to the freezer cabinet. "Like...this whole week has been about getting things out of my system, like the fish fry....and like this..."
"Hey, honey, if this is an Aristotle deal, where you have it, and do it, and leave it behind, then do it," she said. For some reason I have yet, after nearly eight years, to fathom, my wife has a degree of faith in me which, it has to be said by me, if not by anyone else, I've done little to deserve. I think she invested in a multi-buy bulk pack of Husbandly Faith before we got married, and has yet to scrape the bottom of the barrell.
"I don't know what it is, baby. I don't know that I'll be able to leave it behind...that's the point about the Aristotelian experiments...and that's why they're so scary..."
"Y'know, they make tiny tubs over there," she said. I was gone in a heartbeat, looking for the small tubs of self-permission.

I brought one out of the store, and brought it home, and later this evening, for the first time in a good long while, I'm going ot eat ice-cream. Not much ice-cream, but hopefully enough for me to say "There...I've done it....now let's move the Hell on."

Y'know what it's like? It's like this week I've been on Rumspringa.

Rumspringa? Anyone?
Rumspringa's a surprisingly advanced custom, sprung from a generally fairly backward-looking society - the Amish.
I say that in all fairness not because of the Amish focus on customs and ways of life from several hundred years ago - after all, there are plenty of role players round the world who are happy to trade in the modern world for the weapons and dress and speech patterns of earlier eras, and everyone has to have a hobby. More, I think it's fair to call the Amish a generally backward-looking tradition for their insistence on believing that the words of bronze-age writers are still, in this day and age, the best guide through life for individuals and societies, and then rigorously enforcing the traditions of those bronze-age people here in the 21st century. BUT - here's where they surprise me, because normally I'd be happy to say that if we could be certain such a lifestyle harmed no-one, I'd be fine with it, but we can't prove it does no harm, as it's a fairly self-revolving community, yadda yadda yadda...Except for Rumpsringa.

Rumspringa is a period in the life of some would-be Amish teenagers where, for a while, they get a Get-Out-Of-Tradition-Free card. They can do things they wouldn't ordinarily be allowed to do, like drink, smoke, investigate the pleasures of the flesh, travel - and fundamentally see what's out there as an alternative to the life in which they've been raised so far, to decide for themselves whether or not the Amish lifestyle is for them.

Now, granted, it's not exactly a fair choice, because of course all their family and friends are likely to be in the Amish community, but it's more of a choice than many young teenagers are given over whether they follow their parents' traditions (religious or otherwise). So for me, Rumspringa's a surprising, advanced, positive thing.

That, rather than a Reset Button, is what this week has been like for me. Despite tough talk on Tuesday, I've pretty much treated it as time off for good behaviour. I haven't particularly stressed about putting on weight, and I've felt good, and allowed myself the treats I most craved. That takes in the ice-cream that will crown tonight. Yeah, sure, Tuesday will probably show an increase, putting me firmly back into the 15 stone region. But I'm serious about getting things out of my system, and then kissing them goodbye again - A year of hard bloody work and appalling whinging lost me 5.5 of the 9 stones I need to lose. I've had two months now of immobility, and a week of pretty much doing a lot of what I like, without going mental. There are still things that plague my memory - sundaes, sausages in batter, that kind of thing. But I feel fairly certain that when this Rumspringa comes to an end, I'll decide to become a Disappearing Man again. In fact, more than fairly certain - there's no alternative. But right now, the Rumspringa's feeling good, and I have a tiny tub of ice-cream in my future.