Preemptive Retaliation

Sometimes I wonder who I am comparing myself to.

Out there in the world, somewhere, there is a man who wakes up at half six in the morning, completely refreshed from his good nights sleep. He stretches in the morning sunlight, picks up a set of resistance bands, and begins a rigorous but not taxing morning workout. Whilst pulling and bending, he listens to an audiobook. Maybe Lord of the Rings read by Andy Serkis, played at 1x speed.

At breakfast he performs an effortless and intimate ballet with his wife, timing the eggs perfectly with the toast, delivering a vitamined and nutritious breakfast to his children. Bags are prepared, uniforms are dressed, hair is plaited and bowed, and everyone is sent out the door in good time. On the morning radio pop-quiz he scores a solid nine out of ten.

At work he is a shiva, unfolding his arms to perform multiple tasks at once – answering emails, preparing presentations, finalising business cases, developing staff, fixing bugs, and pouring enough cups of coffee to be a quirk and not a dependency. Lunch is a meal prepped protein heavy chicken wrap, eaten over a new novel to read, whilst cleaning the bathroom, and ordering next weeks food shop. At five pm he takes five minutes to himself – leaning back, eyes closed, disentangling his mind from the call-and-answer repetition of work, disengaging himself from the inherent yet satisfying stress of his job – before opening the door to his home office and returning to his wife and children.

In the evenings he is an alert and attentive father, leaping from furniture like a monkey, tossing his son and daughter over his shoulder and cavorting around the room. He plays in the best way and admonishes when appropriate, reads to them great works of literature whilst pulling the strangest voices. His house breathes in giggles.

After bed time he divides himself into his activities; a second workout focusing on cardio, tidying and prep for the following day, a well deserved evening playing an old videogame to relax, quality time with the wife snuggling on the couch catching up on films or a mutually loved TV show, sorting out the odds and ends that need fixing in the house, working on his novel, messaging and speaking with friends, visiting friends in their houses, arriving at gigs and events with friends or solo, practicing piano, slipping on a VR headset, another strength workout, quality time with the wife sitting on opposite seats whilst scrolling through their phones, a new videogame that’s all the rage, played with friends and solo, not shoving fistfuls of malteasers into his mouth, browsing reddit and catching up on youtube essays, sober apart from as few drinks to enjoy the taste, being productive and worthwhile and spending every moment existing without a vague sense of possibly-catholic guilt permeating him, causing him to regret and resent the things he is supposed to enjoy, working on another, better novel, exchanging debate points with a friendly stranger on the internet, listening to all the hottest new bands and appreciating them whilst also revisiting the classics from the annals of music and also reliving the albums that affected him when he was fifteen, reading a new novel gifted to him by a family member as well as one that he’s always wanted to read, and he does this every evening, every night of his life, just living his life and making the best of it.

And he goes to bed at half past ten, and he doesn’t look at his phone, and he falls into a deep and restful sleep.

He’s out there. Somewhere.

But he’s not me.