Tomorrow Never Came.

I wake up again.

I am too cold to get out of bed.

The new day is here, and the reality that I will not be the version of myself that existed in last night's dreams starts to settle in.

I told myself I would be better today, but I'm too good at getting in my own way.

I make deals with myself to delay the discomfort of growth.

I'll be better tomorrow - "What's one more day?"

If I decide tomorrow's the day, I can give in to my vices 24 hours longer.

I hit snooze on my alarm - "Five more minutes of pretending, of dreams, of sleep."

I smother myself in blankets.

I wrap myself around the pillows I've placed in between my arms and my legs, basking in the delusion of my morning haze.

I feel held.

I feel safe.

These are not pillows yet.

I am wrapped around someone who cares about me, and they are wrapped around me.

In those five minutes of snooze, I can be someone who makes somebody late for work just so they can hold me for five minutes more.

Someone who wakes up to the rhythm of another beating heart.

But, without fail, the alarm rings.

I am alone.

I am holding myself.

I hear only one heartbeat. It is slow and tired.

I stare at my ceiling fan until the room spins.

I count down - "three, two, one" - to make myself get out of bed.

My feet hit the floor.

"Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow."

I've spent years making empty promises to myself.

Tomorrow never came. It never does. I know this.

Tomorrow is a loop, a knot I can't seem to unravel.

Why do I carry all of my hope in tomorrow? Why can't I hope, just once, for today?

Maybe it's because I'm an all-or-nothing type person. If I give everything to today, deep down, I know the nothing days are around the corner.

I realize how incredibly depressing this sounds, and it is, but this is not a cry for help. I am not throwing a pity party. I am brutally self-aware, but I am okay.

Life is hard, but, nevertheless, we all cling to it. We cling to the hope that tomorrow is on its way, that it's just stuck in traffic.

That's the beautiful thing about humans: we are growing and dying all the time. We break, but then light pours out of the cracks.

I've been working on living in the now. I can do it, but only for a fleeting moment. I write down those moments, the ones when time stops and I am completely present. I like to read about them when I need a reminder that my heart does more than pump blood.

I would tell you about them, but they are too precious to me - too delicate. Some part of me believes that if I talk about them, they will disappear. I have managed to preserve them, but they are made of glass. I am not delicate, I break things, so I will keep them safely in the pages of my journal.

Ernest Hemingway wrote, "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."

I agree, but I found a loophole.

If you're intelligent enough to be paying attention, happiness is everywhere. It may not be for you, but when you see it - you can decide to catch it. However, nothing good can stay. It is not yours to hold forever, it will leave you only moments later. You must make peace with that, or you will lose yourself trying to grasp something that is not tangible.

Don't get caught up on being happy.

We cannot be happy, but we can experience happiness. You can feel happiness to the point where your heart swells and the corner of your mouth refuses to fall down. But happiness is not a destination.

We cannot be sad, but we can experience sad. You can feel sad until your bones ache with it. But you are not sadness.

I do think we can be lonely though. I think loneliness is tangible in people. It latches onto you and lives behind things.

At some point, I accepted there will always be a thread of loneliness running through me.

Maybe I romanticize loneliness too much.

Maybe that’s just how it feels to get older.

You can experience awful feelings, good feelings, feelings of emptiness, all at the same time. That's why our body still makes tears when a pocket of joy becomes overwhelming. Why, in the middle of a mental breakdown, someone can make you laugh harder than you have in a long time. Why you can be lonely on your birthday, in a room full of people you love and who love you back. It all exists together.

That's why this is not a pity party. I may be stuck in the waiting room, and I may be toxically impatient about it, but it's forced me to think - to look up. I am bored out of my mind on most days, but it is all worth it. To feel anything at all is a beautiful thing to be capable of. So I get out of bed again, and again, and try.

Tomorrow never came. But within a second of today, I could feel what it would be like if it did.

Look around, find the tiny wrinkles of "now". Put them somewhere safe, and visit them when tomorrow stands you up again.