One Day at a Time

I don’t measure progress in milestones. I measure it in mornings. Every morning I get up is a morning I chose to.

That sounds dark. It isn’t. Or it is but it’s also true and truth doesn’t apologise for its lighting.

There were mornings I didn’t want to get up. Not in the tired way. In the what’s the point way. The way that lives at the bottom of a depression so flat and so grey that the ceiling becomes the whole world and the whole world isn’t worth the effort of swinging your legs out of bed.

But I did. Every time. Because two small people needed me to. And needing to be needed is not the healthiest reason to get up but it’s a reason and sometimes a reason is all you’ve got.

One day at a time. People say it like it’s easy. Like a day is a small, manageable unit. But a day contains twenty-four hours and each hour contains sixty minutes and each minute is a decision. To stay. To eat. To answer the email. To make the lunch. To not cry in Tesco. To smile at the school gate. To keep going.

One day is a thousand decisions. And some of them are hard. And some of them I get wrong. And some of them I’m proud of in a way that nobody else would understand because the achievement is so small it’s invisible to anyone who isn’t living inside it.

I ate three meals today. Achievement.
I didn’t check his social media. Achievement.
I sent the invoice. Achievement.
I went outside. Achievement.
I didn’t delete the story I’m writing. Achievement.

My victories are tiny. But they’re mine. And they accumulate. Like interest. Like snow. Like the slow, invisible, daily compounding of a woman who gets up and gets up and gets up until getting up is no longer a decision but a reflex.

I am made of mornings.

Every single one of them chosen.

One day at a time. Not because it’s easy.

Because it’s everything.