He looked in the mirror and saw his mid-life crisis staring back at him.
It had puffy eyes, weird eyebrows, bumps and lines where just a few years ago there were none.
He felt a tight knot in his stomach that made him nauseous.
‘Breathe in, breathe out!’
He grabbed the cold sides of the sink and refused to look at the reflection any longer. He was not his ageing body, he was there inside, he was the same as always, just smarter, more experienced, more balanced. Or was he? Well, in some areas he was.
The reflection though, he could not deny that, he could not pretend he had not seen it.
So unfair! Now that he was finally himself he was starting to disintegrate.
‘How do you accept that? How do you deal with it?’
‘Everything I have ever done, I did because there was no other option. Survival was just the minimum!’
He finished getting ready and left the room without looking back.
As usual, the kitchen was mayhem and drama.
‘I don’t want eggs! Bleah! Who eats eggs for breakfast?!’, it was obvious that his daughter was not expecting an answer, she was just demanding her mother gave her something else.
His wife gave him a rushed kiss.
‘You look nice!’
Inside he growled. He did not feel nice.
His son did not even bother to look up.
He signaled to his wife that he was in a hurry and escaped the stifling kitchen. He left feeling guilty for letting her take all the load, but he had to go, better rush out than make a scene, give out to his children, ruin everybody’s day.
The lesser of two evils.
With every step, with every breath, he felt his cells ageing, himself disintegrating, he was no longer a person in charge, but an animal at the mercy of the elements.
The sun bouncing of the windshield of a car brought back to his mind a different time, another him, when opportunities were plenty and dreams within arms reach.
Busy existing day to day, meeting needs and expectations, he missed his opportunities and his dreams eroded in the chase for survival.
And now, he was taking the journey back and he could not face it.
He took out his phone and, for the first time in three years, he called in sick. He could not work, he could barely focus on not crumbling down and start to cry.
Where is his character arch? He wants to become better, he wants to survive this and learn from it … but life is not like stories, in life the lesson is learnt slowly, if ever, and when you understand the meaning, it often is too late.
Sat on a bench he watches a bird gather little straws and fly away with them.
So useless! The bird will build the nest, it will lay eggs, it will work like mad to feed the chicks, they will grow up and leave. The bird will do the same, on and on, again and again, until one day it will not be able to do it anymore.
But the bird does not care, the bird will work towards its purpose tirelessly at all times for as long as it can.
The bird is a survivor and a fighter.
The sight of the little bird ambitiously carrying large stacks of grass soothes his aching soul. He wonders how does it do it? Sometimes the grass stack is so large that the bird can barely see where it is going? Or is that just his projection?
Maybe the bird knows where it is going even when the grass is too tall and the load too heavy?
Maybe.
He gets up and calls his wife.
‘Meet me in the park!’
Worried, she rushes over after dropping the children to school.
‘Are you ok?’, she does not ask him about work.
‘Yes, let’s have coffee!’
They sit at a little cafe in the park and they watch the birds. They don’t talk about anything else. She totally understands his point about the large load of grass. That little bird is a super star!
‘How are you?’, he cannot remember the last time he asked her.
‘Getting old.’, she smiles.
They hold hands.
‘What do you want to do during the weekend?’
‘I don’t know … something different!’
‘Ok, we will do that then.’
No character arch, no epiphany, just life as we know it.