There are milestones. The first month, eighty percent of us return to the old life. If we make it six months, we have a fighting chance. One year and we’re as cured as we’re going to be. Twenty, thirty years later, gray and slow, there’s a chance we’ll return. Like alcoholics, we’ll live with it every day. That’s what they say, but on my year anniversary I don’t feel any pull. That life seems like someone else’s.
“Because you stayed in therapy,” the doctor says. I never gave up on him. Or myself.
Every Tuesday I leave my job at the Vets Administration, where I greet patients and schedule follow-up appointments, a little early. I hop on the 19 and return to the old homestead for ninety minutes in that tiny room with no air. Except they cut him a window.
“Are you happy with that?” I ask him.
“It’s getting better.” He smiles like he’s a winner. “By next year I’ll have an air conditioner.”
It’s a guarantee.
You’ll get what you want, eventually.
Athletes know it as endurance.
Politicians call it patience.
CEOs have ambition.
Actors have devotion.
I have courage.
The End.