Sometimes the dragon wins.

And we can stop pretending he doesn't.

This week was rough. Why? I can tell you why, but I can’t tell you why.

The initial “why” is because I found myself fighting off a depression. Maybe fatalism—the idea of feeling helpless and frustrated and thinking it’s just always going to be this way. And it took over.

The why behind me feeling like that is a little harder to explain. I think it started with seeing my wife battling her ongoing, now-chronic, medical issues that have been going on for two years. She’s now getting infusions twice a week, and it’s grueling. The schedule, the process, the aftermath. Summer is supposed to be a time you look forward to for relief, but no relief is in sight. Couple that with my son’s ongoing ongoing health issues, and it all just hit me.

Hard.

I was reminded at some point during the week of an old comic I’d seen growing up. It shows a dragon picking his teeth with a knight’s sword, the pieces of the brave soldier strewn across the ground after a defeat. And the headline reads: “Sometimes th…