It was a Sunday, the day of the Lord. I woke up with a major headache and wanted to pee very badly. I’ve been up late last night drinking myself to stupor, and now I am paying for it. I opened my eyes and looked around the room. It was the same room, nothing unusual. The room was still dark, and I wasn’t sure what time it was, but I assumed it was still night. It was hard to keep my eyes open, so I kept them closed as I rolled out of bed. I remember the way from my room to the bathroom by heart. I walked it so many times. We lived in this house for the last two years, and it was our new home. I went to the door and opened it. I was trying to walk through the door passage and hit the frame. Fuck. Why? I knew why exactly. I was still drunk as shit. I moved out of the room and into the hallway to the bathroom. My wife slept with our kid across the room.

We slept separately since the baby started to move around the bed more, pushing his way through the bed. There was not enough space for us to sleep on one queen-sized bed anymore, so I decided to move out. It was the right decision. I had to wake up early every morning to do some writing and then to start work. Back in the pandemic days, I worked from home like most people. Now, this was in history, and I had to drive to the office three days a week. Also, this was a great decision because I could get drunk or smoke cigarettes before going to bed, and it wasn’t a problem for anyone. Drinking affected my motor skills the most. I could still think well and analyze my surroundings, but my feet would not listen. With the next move, I hit the wall. Shit. I hope I woke nobody up. I was about two steps away from the bathroom. I opened the doors and hit the lights. The fucking fluorescent spotlights hit my eyes like a sucker punch in my face. My headache exploded, and I felt a sudden and sharp pain inside my brain. Damn. This red wine really got me this time. It was going down so smoothly last night. I wasn’t expecting this kind of abuse. The toilet seat looked at me, and I felt relieved. I pulled down my boxers and sat down to pee.

Sitting down to pee wasn’t homo for me. It was more relaxing, and I could really focus on the duty much faster and not miss the bowl. Also, it was more sanitary. We were busy people, and cleaning the piss smell every day was not an option or possibility. I had to work every day, and my wife had to babysit a toddler, which wasn’t an easy task, to say the least. My hard-on from all the drinking barely fit inside the toilet, but I managed to put it inside and relieve myself. The hot, smelly stream hit the toilet bowl, and my headache worsened by the second. I could feel my head pulsing. I could feel my brain on fire. I could feel my insides hurting. I could hear the loud piss stream for almost two minutes before it was over, and then with my eyes closed, I just sat there trying to get myself together and not to think too much because my head was exploding.

I felt great to get all that wine piss out of my system. It felt great to break the endless strick of the never-ending and super annoying dream cycle of the same fucking dream that rolled on and on, over and over for the last few hours of my sleep. I’m glad that my blodder decided to help me out. I glanced at my watch; it was five minutes before four in the morning. I always wore a watch on my wrist, no matter what. I wore a watch during the day, in the shower, and in bed. I am one of those people who should always have a watch on their wrist, even if you don’t actually need it all that much.

Four o’clock felt better. That meant that I could now go back to sleep and have enough sleep to fucking sleep off the wine overdose from last night before the new day began. I knew the kid would be the first to wake up every morning. He wakes up and goes downstairs to his playroom and plates. Sometimes, he gets bored playing alone and goes up to my room, wakes me up, and invites me to play with him. I love the fact that he does it. I love that my son wants me in his life, even if it’s just to play with him. As a first-time father, it is important to have, observe, and feel these things. On the flip side, I never have a chance to get a good amount of much-needed sleep. During the week, I can’t get enough sleep because of work, and on the weekend, I can’t get enough sleep because of my drinking habit.

I did some minimal calculations in my head, and I had about a good four hours of sleep before the new day began. I stood up with my eyes closed and pulled my boxers up. I flushed the dark yellow pee down the drain and walked slowly toward the door. There is a big mirror in the bathroom, and I glanced at it for a second as I was passing by. I didn’t like the look of the person I saw. The hair was all screwed up and messed up on the left side, and the face was all puffed up and swollen. I had huge dark bags under my eyes, and the eyes themselves were red and glassy. The person in the mirror was me. I hated that look more than anything. I hated to be that drunk and in so much pain. I did it to myself. I keep doing it to myself over and over again.

A couple more steps brought me to the doorway with a light switch to my left. I flipped the switch and walked the hell out of there and into the pure darkness of my hall. My room was to my left, and I rushed myself inside like I was about to lose control of my body and I needed something to lean on. Fuck. Why would I have to drink so much? I closed the door as quietly as possible and fell on my bed. I closed my eyes and dozed off in a minute. The booze was taking me over, and I had no control over it. All I could do was to sleep it off. And I slept until the morning.

The best thing about living in the suburbs is the dead quiet at night. It’s even better if your street doesn’t have street lights. Whenever the sun sets down, then the night comes. It is dark and empty outside, and also very peaceful. I love those peaceful evenings in the late Spring, throughout the summer, and early Fall when sitting on the patio outside was a pleasure. I spent a lot of time sitting outside alone in the darkness of the night and in the comfort of my backyard. I had my drinks and cigarettes keeping me company. That was the time to think, to reflect, to drink, and to forget.

I have always so much on my mind that it gets tough to pass through all that mental baggage I’ve accumulated over the past three decades. As an adult, the mental baggage never seems to go away or get even remotely lighter. There are only more shit to take care of and problems to deal with as days go by, as my youth vanes, as I am battling my demons trying to survive. I’ve had it worse. Much worse. Life was never easy on me, and I was never easy on it either. There has always been a gamble, challenge, and the next thing, whatever it was. There were days when I couldn’t fucking move, as I was so depressed and stressed out, constantly overthinking every stupid thing and making a problem out of everything. I made a slave out of myself, chaining myself to some weird, obscure thoughts and fears that paralyzed my brain, my freedom, and my thought process.

I used to be a mess for a very long time. I never had a positive thought all the way through my twenties and into my mid-thirties. Shit just could never align for me. I had to hustle all the time, and once I stopped, I fucking felt like everything stopped. And the next thing I knew, the world crumbled under my feet, and I was falling into yet another deep and dark valley of constant depression and anxiety. Maybe that’s why drinking was an easy way out. It helped me to forget. I helped not to care too much. It helped only temporarily because, on the next day, I always needed more, but the magic wore off, and the hangovers came, and I found myself as miserable as a person can be.

The sun was up and shining through the window into the room as I slept in the same position I had assumed some hours before. I fell on the bed after my midnight bathroom break. I heard the birds chirping outside, and I heard my kid running around the house, making noise, trying to get some attention. I couldn’t open my eyes just yet, but the minute my brain awoke, I felt every cell inside. I felt it through the numbing and still pulsing pain all over. The next thing I noticed was the bad breath from the red wine. Damn, how I hated that smell. I tried to flip onto the other side, and my internal pain flipped as I did that. Shit, why did the morning come so fast? I needed another night to recover from last night’s alcohol overdose. Let me stay here, in my bed, under my blanket, behind the closed door for a while and relax. Let’s just forget about everything. Maybe I could get another hour or so before somebody breaks into my room and wakes me up.

There was no liquid in my head, and my mouth was dry and smelled disgustingly of red wine from last night. I turned towards my nightstand and reached for the bottle of spring water. There always was a bottle of spring water on my nightstand. I still had my eyes closed as I didn’t want to wake up fully. Let me just sip on some water and get back to sleep. Even for another ten to twenty minutes. Fuck how my head hurt. My hand hit the bottle, and it fell out of the nightstand. Now, I had no choice but to open my eyes to pick that fucking bottle back up from the floor. I unscrewed the plastic cap and drank half the bottle right away. Damn. I was so dehydrated I felt like my eyes dried out. I put the bottle back on the nightstand and flipped on my side, closing my eyes and trying to see at least one more dream or no dreams at all. I don’t care for dreams too much. I don’t mind if I only see darkness while sleeping. I just needed another hour to pass out as I checked out in hopes of recovering better.

I don’t know how much time passed before I woke up again. This time, I was up for good. There was no reason to sleep anymore. I was tired of sleeping. I was tired of my hangover. I was tired of feeling sick. I heard sounds coming from downstairs. My wife was up there with our kid. My wife made breakfast, and my kid played as usual, refusing to eat and only asking for sweet treats. It was almost eleven o’clock at that time. I scrolled through my phone, trying to kill some more time. I checked some emails that came in throughout the week. I was so busy I couldn’t barely check them all out. Most of them were bullshit ads, subscription emails, newspaper emails, and some shit I couldn’t remember signing up for. There was nothing there for me. I checked my Instagram and Twitter apps, and twenty minutes later, I realized that I was not getting anything from any of them. What a waste of time and life scrolling through all that useless and short-lived mess of images, texts, and news, and just pretentious, miserable lives of others. What do I have to do with them? I have nothing to do with them. They have nothing to do with me. Why in the fuck were they all in my news feed at all? Life has got to be more meaningful than that. Where is the sense of looking at other people’s lives, never-ending ads, and always-toxic twenty-four-hour news cycles? Fuck all that, I thought. There is a life out there to live. There are things out there to live for. There is my family downstairs, and I am like a mental invalid watching all that bullshit with my sick head, trying to cure my own problems.

I rolled out of bed and walked towards the window. I opened the curtains and lifted the window up to get some fresh late-summer air inside. God knows, there was no air after last night in here. I walked slowly towards the bathroom. My son heard me walk and ran towards me, shouting happily. “Dady, let’s go play with me!” He said that with the most innocent and honest and brightest smile a person could have. Kids certainly have the purest and most honest smiles in the world. Adults all just pretend to be honest most of the time. I smiled back with my stoned, drunk, and still very sleepy face.

“I’ll be right down with you, son,” I said, giving him a little hug. He started to jump from excitement. He always loves to play with his dad. I wish I had that much enthusiasm to always play with him. There is never the right time. There is always something else to think or worry about. There is always the feeling of mental and spiritual exhaustion and a constant desire to be left alone in peace and quiet. Hugging my son felt great. I created that little human. He is my blood and soul. He is a part of me. He is my biggest love in this whole wide crazy fucking world. His small body felt warm and cozy against my bare skin. I felt grateful to have him. It has been my greatest joy to watch him grow, develop, and become a person. Why I was such a fuck up? I don’t know. I have my demons to battle. I am fighting against them all the time. Sometimes, they win, and sometimes I lose.

I took a cold shower, which sobered me up quickly. I wasn’t sleepy anymore; however, my face said the opposite. I washed myself really well, trying to wash out all the dirt inside of me. I believed a great shower would help me clean my consciousness and forget my sins. I brushed my teeth afterward from that annoying wine combined with a nasty morning breath smell. I really felt cleaner. I was getting back to my senses. I knew that I could start this day as a new person. I just wished that new person wouldn’t fuck up towards the end of the day like I tend to do usually. My family needs me. I need them. I have to try my best not to fuck up again. I will try today. I’m sure I can.

I got dressed and came downstairs to our living room. The kid was there happily, running around and showing me his toys, inviting me to play with him. I kissed my wife and hugged her.
“Are you feeling better? Did you have a good sleep?” She asked.
“Yes, I am much better now. Thanks for taking care of him and getting me a chance to recover a bit.” She knew the minute she saw me. She always knows.
“No problem. We already ate. I have some hard-boiled eggs for you, and a salad is on the table. Want some coffee, honey?” She asked.
“Yes, that would be great. Thank you, babe!” How lucky I was to have a woman like that in my life? One can only wonder.

Today was a new day, after all.