Today will be different

“Today will be different.” She told herself. The door stood as a menacing barrier between the safety of her quaint home and the harsh world. It would take her hours at best to muster up the courage to break open that barrier and step through, still, she kept the mantra, today will be different, chanting through her mind.

The mirror looked back at her with hollowed eyes, the result of days without sunlight. Days, it had been days, weeks maybe even, she couldn’t exactly remember. Time was elusive when she had her spells. But today would be different. She would brush her hair, slip on some “real” clothes, and join society. 

Her bones seemed to grind with the movement of pulling the brush through her dull hair. It took all her strength, forcing her to sit on the side of the bathtub, but she managed to relieve all the tangles of her bedhead.

The dream of sleep called to her when she stood before her closet to pick an outfit. Her bed, equal parts safety and harm, did its best to draw her back to its heavy blanket and deep pillows. A moan slipped from her mouth as she bent to slide the linen pants up, over her legs. Her fingers shook at the buttons of her shirt. She walked from her room, resisting the phantom pull of sleep-demons that, if she let them, would drag her under without release until she was fully bled of every ounce of energy and brain activity. 

The hours between bed and the participation of life were long and slow, weak and fragile, but she couldn’t bear to accept defeat again, not today at least. Today would be different.

She knew there would be no food before leaving home. The refrigerator never got stocked, and when it did hold sustenance, it came in the form of leftover takeout she’d put there after her last attempt to have a good day, which would go bad during the time it took her to drag herself away from the death-like sleep back to the living. So she didn’t bother looking; the thought of finding mold-ridden leftovers was more than she could take, and she needed all the strength she could gather to make sure she got herself through the door. That would be the mark of success.

The oven clock blinked at her with a reset code, another piece of evidence that she'd been in bed longer than she knew. She could not remember the electricity going out; there was no need to turn a lamp on while at the mercy of her depression. 

Today would be different. Stopping just past the kitchen counter, she stooped to grab her shoes, a pair of running shoes that never knew running and barely saw the outdoors. The laces were already tied as she wedged her feet in. Her feet almost welcomed the enclosed space, the support of the arch, the narrowness of the toe, an embrace for that part of her body to separate herself from the world she was about to give herself over to.

Next, she slipped her jacket on. The warmth of the outside would render the jacket moot, but the barrier it would provide was necessary, and the heat just might be enough to drown her anxiety. 

Her body resisted with tremors as she approached the door, the exit, or maybe the entrance, depending on how she looked at it, depending on the level of her optimism. “Today will be different.”

The knob rattled with the turn and gave way to a whine of hinges, then the air hit. An odd combination of fresh expanse and harsh void. She zeroed her mind, looking at her feet, the running shoes back in the environment they were meant for. A single step and she will have accomplished the task. A single step and she could be proud, a single step and then she could choose the next. This first one was non-negotiable, but the next would be up for debate, and with high hopes, she imagined herself foraging on, walking for hours. This was the hope anyway, but never the reality.