Day 1593
Five Years From Now, I Won’t Remember Why Today Was Hard
Whenever I’m having a bad day for reasons I’m not going to post on the internet, I try to remind myself of something: if I read this five years from now, I probably won’t even remember what was bothering me.
Whatever feels enormous tonight will eventually become a day I cannot distinguish from the thousands surrounding it. The problem may be real. The frustration may be justified. Still, time will swallow most of it whole.
So why give it more of me than it deserves?
Sometimes I tell myself that I’m a man and nobody besides me Mum gives a f*** about my feelings. That is probably harsher than the literal truth. My wife cares. My family cares. My friends care. But the world does not stop moving because I’m having a rough day. The bills still come. My kids still need their dad. The people who depend on me still need me to show up.
People might say your wife loves you unconditionally. Maybe she does. I also believe Paige would try to help me if I fell. She would give me grace, encourage me, and do everything she could to help me find my feet again.
But if I simply gave up tomorrow, stopped providing, and decided to sulk for a year? Yeah, eventually she would be gone. Honestly, if she stayed forever while I refused to help myself, I would be a little worried.
That is not bitterness. Marriage is love, but it is also responsibility. You make promises to another person, and those promises require something from you. Unconditional love does not mean consequence-free behavior. Someone can love you deeply and still refuse to let you drag the entire family down with you.
Get Chep’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
The closest thing I know to unconditional love is what a parent feels for a child. That is exactly why, once you have kids, you cannot allow every bad day to become an identity. They did not ask to inherit your moods. They need your presence, your effort, and your example. They need to see that life can hit you hard without owning you.
None of this means men should feel nothing, pretend everything is fine, or refuse to ask for help. That is its own kind of stupidity. Pain ignored tends to come back uglier. Talk to someone. Pray. Go for a walk. Write it down. Get professional help if you need it.
Feel what you feel. Just do not hand it the steering wheel.
This is not always what you want to hear when you are already down. Trust me, I know. Sometimes you want sympathy. Sometimes you want somebody to confirm that you have every right to feel miserable. Maybe you do. Then what?
Eventually, you still have to decide what happens next. No one else can make that decision for you. There comes a point when you have to look yourself in the mirror, accept that today sucked, and refuse to let one bad day become a bad week, a bad year, or a wasted life.
So I’m writing this as tonight’s meditation and as a message to the version of me who may need to read it later:
Grow the hell up.
You’re a man, brother. Deal with it. Ask for help if you need it. Fix what you can. Accept what you cannot. Then wake up tomorrow and get better. Simple as!!
8/1/26
Conor Jay Chepenik
