Not Today

2am. His name. His message. And just like that, I’m awake.

Not in the drowsy, half-conscious way where you turn over and drift back into sleep. No—awake awake. Heart racing. Brain on. Body too alert, too aware. I tell myself to ignore it, to roll over, to be an adult about this, but I already know how this goes. I already know sleep is gone.

And I know what tomorrow looks like.

Meetings. Expectations. Emails. People asking for things. The hundred tiny obligations that make up a day. The ones I usually move through without thinking. But today?

I just can’t.

I don’t want to put on the face, play the part, make the jokes, send the emails, pretend that I’m fine when I’m not. I don’t want to hear the well-meaning platitudes.

You deserve better.

Everything happens for a reason.

I know. But that doesn’t change the fact that right now it just feels like shit.

And I just want to sit in the fuck this of it all.

Somewhere along the line, I became this person. The one who gets things done. The one who shows up. The one who keeps it together. And most of the time, that’s fine.

But today?

I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want to be reliable. I don’t want to be the one who bounces back quickly, who finds the silver lining, who powers through.

I don’t want to be needed. I don’t want to be on.

I just want to sit in this quiet mess of feelings, to not have to explain why I’m not laughing the same way, why I don’t want to go out, why I’m staring off into space more than usual.

I don’t want to go to school in the morning.

That’s what it feels like, the childhood feeling of waking up and knowing you just can’t today, but you have to go anyway. Because that’s what people do. Because there’s no permission to just be in it.

But the world doesn’t stop. The emails will still be there.

The meetings, the bills, the calls, the people waiting for a response. It will all keep stacking up.

I know I have to do something with it.

But not today.

Not today.