A couple of days after the Flip incident, I was sunk deep into our grey sectional couch—the kind that's seen too many Netflix binges, kid wrestling matches, and late-night money worries. The living room felt like it was breathing around me, heavy with the lived-in chaos of family life. Sunlight sliced through the sheer white curtains, hitting the hardwood floors and bouncing off the cluttered marble-top coffee table littered with yesterday's takeout wrappers, a half-empty red Solo cup, scattered mail, and Lori's laptop still open to whatever she was working on. The patterned rug underneath was bunched up from where the boys had been playing, and the air smelled like coffee grounds, laundry detergent, and that faint, sweet scent of the bamboo plants on the wall shelf above the TV.

The shelves held our life in miniature—a bright yellow bird painting hanging next to a calendar marked with school events, a jade Buddha statue watching over it all. Through the front windows, I could see the wreath on the door and the stairs leading up to the bedrooms. The TV stand held our Amazon Fire Stick, the PS4 controller, and a laundry basket overflowing with clothes. It was a comfortable mess, the kind that said we're making it, even when the bills said otherwise.

I was so deep in my chi that my chanting had gotten really loud—almost like snoring, from what I'm told. But I wasn't asleep. To snore would mean I was sleep.

I open my eyes to the sound my wife trotting down the steps, "What time is it?"

"Time to pick up the kids." I must've been there all day meditating, since dropping my boys off at school.

"Damn. I guess I haven't fully recovered from the shows last weekend."

"That's why I let you sleep. You need your beauty rest, my Prince."

Lori stood there with that warm smile—the one that crinkled the corners of her eyes just right, her skin glowing in the afternoon light, hair pulled back practical but pretty. She had that solid, grounded presence, curves that filled out her casual jeans and tee perfectly, the kind of woman who could wrangle 3 boys, bills, and my crazy artist dreams without breaking stride.

"Ha Ha, very funny. I wasn't sleep, I was concentrating on my show tonight."

"Well, that was some deep concentration," my wife jested, "A show in town? That's rare. Where?"

"Mic Club. It was sort of a last minute thing. I asked D.R.E.S. if he could put me on the bill tonight after dude in VA ran off with my money." For whatever reason, I started thinking about that Souls of Mischief song, Get The Girl, Grab The Money, And Run.

"What's so funny?"

"I got the girl, but I forgot to grab the money and run."

"What?"

"Nevermind." Lori wasn't a hip hop head, so she wouldn't get the reference. She grew up in rural suburb of Seattle called Arlington. Don't get it twisted, she loves hip hop - not as much as she loves Prince - but she wasn't up on that '90's underground shit.

"Okay, well if you're not going to grab me and run, I'm going to go ahead and get the kids." She turns to walk away, then remembers. "By the way, we just got the final notice on the light and cell bills. They have to be paid by Thursday or..."

"I know. It's always the same...our shit'll be turned off. By the way, thank you for everything. I really appreciate you having my back all of these years." I WILL NOT CRY. I WILL NOT CRY. I WILL NOT CRY. I'M A MUTHAFUCKIN MAN.

COMPLETE SIDE NOTE FROM THE STORY - Not crying in front of my sons is one of the most unhealthy things that I could do to them. It holds to this ridiculous thought embedded into the male psyche that real men don't cry. We're supposed to be this stoic and unrelenting force of bread winning that ignores our emotions that make us feel weak and vulnerable.

This, of course, is impossible. So I'd suspect that many men do what I do, and wait for everyone to be asleep to release that tear-filled pressure valve. Some cats don't even do that. Instead, they hold it all in until they snap on someone or themselves. In the hood it's even worse.

The combination of feeling rejected by the society we are a part of, and the lasting effects of Reconstruction and Jim Crow policies created decades of marginalization. Bell Hooks discusses this in depth in her acclaimed book, We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity.

Personally, I can't recall even hugging my closest friends that were males until I was around 25, which is the time that I became aware of my depression and how it manifested itself. I believe that the first time that my dad and hugged was when I was 18 years old. That was mainly because I hadn't seen him since I was 13 because he moved to Atlanta 5 years before.

It's become a very hard, and a self-examining process of teaching my sons the importance of standing as a man and sucking shit up while being able to express your emotions for the sake of your mental health. I'm learning it as I teach it myself. - END SIDE NOTE.

"Why do you say that every time we're short on bills? One day I'm going to tell you you're not welcome." She kisses me on my forehead. Why she chooses to kiss me there and not on my lips sometimes is a mystery. I asked her about it once, and she says that she loves my big head.

"Thank you, still."

"None of that 'thank you still' stuff. My job is to have your back and vice versa. I knew what I signed up for. We see this to the end together. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Well I'm off. Need me to wake you up when I get back?"

"Nope. I won't be sleep."

She didn't believe me. For what it's worth, my body was calling me a liar also, because I was doing all that I could to keep my eyes open for this conversation.

"Okay. Well, if you were..." she holds up the air quote sign, "resting your eyes, what time would you need to be up by?"

"Six, but you don't have to worry about that because I won't be resting my eyes."

"Okay. Well, I will make sure I'm back in time enough to not wake you up," then leaves.

I'll admit that I was little bothered by her assumption that I was just going to fall to sleep. Mind over matter, and my mind mattered more than my fatigue.

When Lori gets home, I'll be right here with bright eyes watching The Office on Netflix. I sit up on the couch and open Netflix on the Amazon Fire Stick. The TV flickered to life, casting its blue glow across the cluttered room. I scroll down to season five, episode fourteen to the Stress Relief episode - the one where Dwight makes everyone think that it's a fire and makes Stanley have a heart attack.

For the record, The Office is the fourth greatest sitcom of all time. Number one is All In The Family. There will never be another one of those. Number two is A Different World. The social commentary and subjects that the show tackled were on another level. Number three is Everybody Loves Raymond. Shut up, it is. Number four is The Office. Number five fluctuates between The Cosby Show and The Andy Griffith Show.

Somewhere around Stanley's heart attack, and Dwight Michael trying to figure out the correct pronunciation of the past tense of heed, I went back into meditation to contemplate the universe and our existence.

"Wake up, it's 6 o'clock."

Startled and a little disoriented from my four hour contemplation of creation, I jumped up, "I wasn't sleep." I don't think that wiping drool from the right side of my mouth proved my case.

"I know. You were in deep meditation."

"No. I was in light meditation." I heard you guys when ya'll came in, but I was in the middle of centering my qi."

"I can tell by how loud you were snori...I mean, chanting."

"Smart ass."

"By the way, apparently you promised your boys that you'd play with them before you left."

"Oh yeah. I told them that we can play Ben 10." Not the 2018 version of Ben 10, though. I can't stand the new animation style of rebooted shows. Thank God that the DC Universe channel is bring back Young Justice.

"They were going on about it in the car."

"I guess I need to get it then." That's when I charged in the room yelling, "Humungasaur!!!"