3:00 AM Regret
I woke up abruptly at 3:00 AM, and I was in agony. But it wasn’t the usual spinal pain; this was contact pain. My right hip, which I had rolled onto during his sleep, felt bruised. My shoulder was numb. The floor was unforgiving. There was no tossing and turning here; you had to move with intention. I sat up in the dark, rubbing my numb shoulder, looking up at my wife sleeping peacefully on the marshmallow mattress. She looked so comfortable. The temptation to crawl back into bed was overwhelming.
I almost quit right then and there. I told myself, “This is stupid. You have a mortgage and a career; you don’t need to do this.” But then I remembered Miller’s voice: “You Americans are too soft.” If I quit after four hours, I was proving him right. I was proving that I was physically incapable of doing what humans had done for thousands of years. I grit my teeth, rolled onto my back to relieve the pressure on my hip, and forced myself to stay on the mat. It was the longest night of my life.