Daily triumph

I didn’t do it today. It isn’t the first day or some round number anniversary. Just one of those days in the middle, a Tuesday, a day no-one will congratulate you on making it.

It was an ordinary day. I did everything that was expected of me: I showered, I ate, I went to work; I played with my son afterwards; I made love with my wife. Everything nice and fine.

But the urge lingers, even as I lay down in bed, exhausted. Just one to show myself it’s not a big deal, just one to drown the feeling of dread, just one to fog the never-ending fear of tomorrow...

And then what? Just one tomorrow, and the one the next day, until it’s just one day without it, please, just one.

So I lay down in bed, celebrating quietly, this one day I didn’t do it, the same as the hundreds before it.

Thinking about my love and my child and how I never want to disappoint them. How I always want to stay my son’s hero and my wife’s knight in shiny armor. They never met the person I was before I said: “not today, maybe tomorrow, but not today.” And I fight myself every day so that tomorrow never comes, that they never meet him.