There’s been a shift in the game plan, and like any good plot twist, it comes with both relief and a little chaos. Mom is taking over transportation for the book festival. That alone should calm the storm, but my brain doesn’t quite work like a quiet lake. It’s more like a popcorn machine at a carnival… always popping, always buzzing, always tossing out worst-case scenarios like confetti I never asked for.
I’ve been having nightmares about the logistics. Not monsters, not falling… but missing passes, wrong turns, forgotten boxes, and somehow ending up in the wrong place at the wrong time with everything unraveling like a cheap sweater. Then I wake up, stare at the ceiling, and instead of tackling the details like a general with a battle plan, I drift. Not quite avoidance, not quite action… just hovering in between like a plane circling the runway.
And today, I bought a pack of cigarettes.
No dramatic music. No lightning bolt. Just a quiet transaction and a familiar ritual. Light, inhale, exhale. The old companion that never judges, never asks questions… and quietly takes more than it gives.
But here’s the twist in the story that matters: I still want to be smoke free for the event.
That desire is still alive. Maybe bruised, maybe coughing a little, but alive.
At the same time, I’m looking for a new place to live. A place where I can land, reset, build something stable. And right there in the center of it all is Whiskey Kitty. My little tuxedo shadow. My alarm clock with whiskers. My pounce instructor. If I can bring her with me, it’s not just housing… it’s home. If I can’t… well, that’s a quiet kind of heartbreak that doesn’t make noise but lingers like an echo.
Still, I keep coming back to the same phrase, like a refrain in a song I refuse to forget:
Once again, I got this.
Because here’s the truth, stripped of drama and dressed in honesty… I am trying. Harder than I have before. I’m cutting back. I’m thinking about it. I’m writing about it. I’m not pretending it doesn’t exist anymore. That alone is a kind of progress that doesn’t show up on a scoreboard but matters just the same.
Not everything is black and white. Recovery isn’t a light switch… it’s a dimmer. Some days brighter, some days darker, but always adjustable. The only real failure would be to walk out of the room and leave the switch untouched.
And I’m still in the room.
I know why this matters. I know the risks. I’ve known them for years, like a letter sitting unopened on the table. Cancer isn’t some abstract villain in a distant story… it’s real, and I’ve always known I’d have to face this eventually. I just got very good at pretending “eventually” meant “not today.”
Now it’s today.
What I’ve learned, maybe the hard way, maybe the only way… is that mental health and physical health are not two separate books on different shelves. They’re chapters in the same story. Ignore one, and the other starts writing in all caps.
So here I am. Not perfect. Not finished. Not smoke free yet.
But still writing the next page.
Still trying.
Still showing up.
Still believing, even when the belief feels like it’s running on fumes.
And that counts for more than I used to give it credit for.
Once again… I got this.
by Dan and Bonkers
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