You wake up in the morning and the first thing you want to do, before you move a muscle, before you rub the sleep from your eyes, before you even take a breath, the first and only thing you want to do … is cry.
And you do. But it’s not a good cry. It doesn’t feel good. It feels cowardly and shameful. It feels wrong and selfish. It feels like a sign.
It won’t be today.
You say all the things to yourself that you’re supposed to. You give yourself permission to start again. And you do—reluctantly—but you do.
You move about your morning. You talk, but the words feel programmed. They move over your lips, but you don’t taste them. You barely hear them, but they’re yours. Your hands perform the necessary tasks that are yours to manage every morning. For them. And then your hands perform the necessary tasks that are yours to manage every morning. For you.
It could be today, you tell yourself. Just keep moving.
Your legs carry you to your next responsibility. Your face, voice, and hands are there, but your mind is elsewhere, everywhere, and nowhere all at once.
You take more breaks than you think you should, but how else are you supposed to get through it? If you let it take you, you’re lost. So, you fight it. You stand up to it. You tell it to go to hell. No one sees you fighting. No one knows it’s happening.
You feel a little sick and tell yourself it’s nothing. You feel sicker and tell yourself to deal with it.
You get through part one of your day without once having felt like your senses are your own. You retreat and commit to trying again.
In front of the screen, your eyes blur over the words you wrote yesterday. You hate them—all of them—because no one wants to read them. No one cares this much about what you think or how you feel. No one cares.
So why should you?
The feeling starts at the back of your neck and threatens to take hold of you. You hurry outside to catch the sun on your face and fill your ringing ears with the bustling sounds of life around you. Active life, real life, happening life. Not yours, theirs, but still. It feels good to be part of someone’s life, even if it’s not your own.
You busy your body and your hands with work. Strenuous work that hurts, but in a good way. You set your mind to listening to someone else talk about their journey. Their problems and their solutions. And it helps. Enough that you want to try again—really try again today.
You get in the car and ignore the sensations under your skin. The warnings. The buzz. The tremor in your fingers. You fight it as you start the engine and back out of the driveway.
What are the odds? You ask yourself over and over. So far, it’s the only thing you have. You’re still waiting for a more complete set of instructions for how to manage this. You’re waiting for help and it’s coming. Just not today.
You pull over on the side of the road and get out on wobbly legs. You trek into the woods. You lose track of time. You listen for their voices and look for their faces. You feel for their hands, outstretched and ready to catch you.
You don’t honestly believe you’ll find them. You’ve convinced yourself they were never really there. That you were duped. Suckered into a falsehood that they gave a shit about you. Because you know deep down that they don’t. Not really. Not in the way you give a shit about them. Why do you give a shit? You ask yourself. You don’t have an answer.
You hear them first. They’re talking about you, casually, because that’s the only way they know how. You see them next, but their faces are muddled because you don’t actually know what they look like. You don’t really know them. But you love them just the same. You love them and you need them and that makes you feel stupid. It makes you feel weak. You don’t want to need them. You don’t want to care what they think or how they feel or what they want out of life.
But you do.
They ask you if you’re ready. You lie and say yes.
Then you feel their hands, outstretched, patting your shoulder, bumping your fist, smacking your ass in a friendly, sportsmanlike kind of way. You feel it all, and you want it to feel good, but it doesn’t. You don’t trust it. Don’t believe it’s real.
But you’re here, so you keep moving forward.
You reach the ladder, leaning up against a sturdy oak tree. Two of them hold the base of the ladder with one hand and offer you the other. You take their hands, and it breaks your heart that they don’t feel like anything. They don’t hold warmth. There’s no landscape of callouses or atmosphere of sweat to tell you any more about who they are. But you still squeeze their fingers a little as you set your foot on the first rung, then the second, hoping some of your warmth, some of your landscape, will transfer to them. Because you want them to have it. You want them to know you because that’s why you’re here.
To be known.
The climb to the third rung forces you to let go of their hands. You clutch the wooden rails on either side and your heart starts to race. Your mind drifts and your will falters. You grit your teeth against the feeling on your skin, the tingling, the flashes of heat as blood shuttles through your veins with a purpose.
Blood has a purpose. Skin has a purpose. Teeth have a purpose.
So why don’t you?
The final rung steals your breath. You gasp for air, grip the bark on the tree until it leaves marks in your flesh. You wish you could feel it, but you’re trapped outside of yourself.
They’re calling up to you, encouraging you to let go. You hear them but you can’t trust them. You want to. You want to trust that they’ll catch you. You want to believe that they care. That this matters. That you matter.
But you don’t believe it.
Not today.
You clutch the steering wheel in both hands and give in to crying. But it’s not a good cry. It feels like failure. Failure to trust. Failure to launch. Failure to forgive. Failure to move.
Your phone buzzes on the seat beside you and you pick it up.
H: Do you need me to come get you?
My heart aches as I bring my shaking thumb to the screen.
M: I don’t want to need that.
H: Would you “like” me to come get you?
The right corner of my mouth twitches up.
M: Yes. I’m sorry.
H: Why are you sorry?
M: Because I’m weak. And an asshole.
H: But you’re MY weak asshole.
I laugh through my tears and for the first time since I woke up this morning, my senses are my own.
M: Maybe you should get a new asshole.
H: Nah. This one still works. In a pinch.
M: Gross. And I love you.
H: I love you.
M: I’ll do better tomorrow.
H: I know you will. Sit tight. We’ll be there soon.
M: Thank you.
H: Anything for my asshole.
I smile at the screen until it goes dark. Then I recline in my seat and curl up to wait for rescue.
They all come for me. My heroes. The faces and voices and hands I know and love best. And they take me home.
It didn’t happen today. I’ll try again tomorrow.
And the next day and the next.
Until the day I wake up and the first thing I want to do, before I move a muscle, before I rub the sleep from my eyes, before I even take a breath, the first and only thing I want to do … is try.
Absolutely nailed this. Thank you.
Perhaps you already suspect my favorite moment?
“smacking your ass in a friendly, sportsmanlike kind of way.”
Recently, my wife and I got one of those ‘couples therapy but for fun’ apps and a daily question was “how do you experience love?” And I wrote, “I prefer a gently butt squeeze when washing the dishes,” and boy oh boy for the past couple weeks has my wife not let me forget it, my butt is red and sore to sit!