Victory Is Mine

I wish I could say failure was as unknown to me as my brother's current address, but last year on my seventh anniversary, I gave my wife a cupcake with a candle in it and a six pack of non-light beer, four of which I drank.. The spot where my college diploma should be is taken by a picture of pool-playing dogs and the caption, "hey, one leg on the floor." My childhood soccer uniform is not framed in my office next to other sports memorabilia from fellow professional athletes. Yes, failure follows me as closely as my little brother did, age four through ten. But when I saw that toddler-sized dribble of pee sporadically hit the inner walls of the toilet and then waterfall downward into the pool of redemption below, I grabbed my newly potty-trained son's arm, held it up toward the gods that made it all possible, and yelled, "gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooal!" I followed this up with an acceptance speech to a still toilet-seated audience member of one, in which I thanked everyone from huggies pull-ups to the first years toilet seat company. Weeks of hard work culminated in this one day, and I knew victory was mine.