One Stubborn Breath at a Time

I shouldn’t be here.
I shouldn’t be taking notes on my phone while weighing the pros and cons of filling this prescription at the pharmacy.
No one should.
But now isn’t the time for philosophical musings on what should be basic human rights.
Now’s the time for a decision.
Do I buy the medication I can’t afford to treat the pneumonia that’s already settled into my lungs,
or do I save the money for something else, something more important, something like eggs or toothpaste?

That’s when the thought arrives, small and cruel and tender all at once:
Ashley, maybe this is where you quit.
Not in anger.
Not in defeat.
In exhaustion.
Maybe quitting is a mercy you’ve earned.

Every season has its breaking point.
For some, it’s one hardship too many.
For others, it’s the slow realization that no one is coming to help.
Mine is quieter.
It whispers alongside the crackle of my lungs when I breathe, it burrows into the space between antibiotics and groceries, between fever and faith, between needing rest and knowing I can’t afford it.

Hand in hand with the purulent fluid filling my lungs is the reality that maybe none of this has mattered.
The years of speaking the truth, holding to principle, shielding those who haven’t shielded me,
has not and will not help a single soul.
Maybe all I’ve done is ensure a thin life and a quiet death for the scrap of dignity I’ve managed to keep alive this long.

Quitting tempts me because it sounds like rest to my fevered head and aching muscles.
It sounds like stillness, like sleep, like peace.
It sounds like letting someone else take the next turn.
But there isn’t anyone else.
And until there is, the math keeps showing the same thing:
if I quit, if I go silent, then the weight lands on the person behind me 
and theres still nothing to slow the inertia of harm before it breaks across their shoulders.

That’s the thread running through everything, this daily calculation of cost and care.
Every choice is a tiny referendum on hope.
Each time I choose to keep going, it’s not because I believe it’ll get easier.
It’s because stopping would mean the story ends here,
in the pharmacy aisle,
with this bit of the world unchanged and the cycle free to continue.

So I buy the medicine.
I take the pills.
I drive home with a chest that burns and make dinner out of what I can.
Not because I’m tireless or noble, but because endurance is the language I have left for love,
the ordinary decision to keep the hope of a better future breathing,
one shallow, stubborn breath at a time.