The Aftermath

There is always a bill waiting after a good time.

I’m out somewhere that feels like a treat. Just the right level of boujiness to tempt me out of my pyjamas.

The company is good, the food is exactly what I hoped it would be, and I’ve made just enough effort with glam to feel like myself rather than the woman on the struggle bus who nearly cancelled an hour ago. From the outside, all looks well. Relaxed. Enjoyable. The kind of evening that, for most people, is totally uncomplicated.

For me, only parts of it are.

I’m in it. Properly in it. Laughing, fully into the conversation, letting myself relax in a way that almost feels normal. For a while, I can pretend to ignore everything else. I have to pretend because, in reality, it doesn’t go anywhere.

The pain is there the whole time. Not politely waiting its turn in the conversation. Not softened by the glamourous setting. It cuts through the laughter, sits heavy in my body, reminds me exactly where the edges are. The fatigue is there too, building slowly, making everything just that bit harder to stay on top of.

And I stay anyway. Despite, and in spite of, the pain.

You can’t see it in the photos or during the first hour of the evening. You will likely only see the version of me that looks like she’s having a lovely time. But it is there and it’s forcing me to make constant decisions underneath it all.

In the very wise words of The Clash:

Should I stay, or should I go now?
If I go, there will be trouble.
And if I stay, it will be double.

The decisions are happening in real time, while I’m still smiling, still engaged, still trying to hold onto the bit of the evening I came for. Remembering that the joy, the laughter, the connection and the great food is worth it.

It would be easier, in a very practical sense, to leave earlier. To be more careful. To manage it properly. To say no when an invite is given or a plan suggested.

I just don’t always want to. I am alive and I bloody well want to live.

I am fully aware of the fact that I don’t move through the world without limits. I move through it knowing exactly where they are and deciding, case by case, whether I’m going to respect them. Or not, as the case may be.

If something matters to me, I will push past the limits. Throw caution to the wind. Be a bit stupid in the pursuit of joy.

I can’t do that endlessly or without thinking about it. But enough to feel like I didn’t cut my own life short in the name of being sensible. The fact is, I am going to feel like crap whether I enjoy myself sometimes or not so I take the chance on feeling crap but having memories that can carry me through the darker times.

There’s absolutely nothing glamorous about that. It’s uncomfortable. It’s tiring. Sometimes it’s frustrating in a way that’s hard to explain without sounding like a fainting heroine in a Jane Austen novel.

But that pig-headedness is also the only reason I have any lighter moments at all.

Everything good/fun comes with a set of decisions and considerations attached to it.

Not always just whether I can technically manage it but whether I can physically do it at all. Always whether I’m willing to deal with what comes after. A meal out might take the next day out of me. A full day out tends to spill into two. Travel can take the rest of the week and then some.

I know all of that before I go in, of course. I know it when I’m getting ready, when I’m deciding whether to cancel, when I’m sitting there halfway through the evening pretending I’m not already at my limit.

The enjoyment isn’t free. It never is.

I just decide, in that moment, that I’m having it anyway.

The aftermath is where shit gets real, as they say!

Not always immediately, which definitely makes it worse. There’s sometimes a small moment of deluded hope where I think I’ve got it right, where I feel almost fine and start to believe I’ve finally worked out the balance.

Aaaaaand then it hits me - full body blow.

The pain is louder, sharper, unwilling to be ignored. The fatigue settles in to my bones, the kind that doesn’t shift no matter how much you rest. Anything I thought I might get done that day, no matter how small, starts to feel slightly unrealistic, then completely out of reach.

And there’s a moment, every time, where I feel it. Not surprise. Not exactly regret. Just a flash of frustration that this is the price I pay for just trying to live a little.

Was it worth it?

It’s an unfair question, really, because the answer is never clear cut.

The night was probably good. Maybe even really good. The kind of night that reminds me I still have a life I want to be part of. I felt like myself, not a reduced version of myself, not someone carefully managing every second. And isn’t that the entire point?

But, the cost is real as well. I feel it in a way that’s impossible to ignore. It shapes the next day, sometimes the next few days, in ways that are limiting and inconvenient and frankly, infuriating.

I don’t get to pick one or the other. If I want the joy, I have got to take the pain. There is probably some sort of motivational phrase I could print on a mug there.

Of course, there is a version of my life where this doesn’t happen.

I could just make fewer, or no, plans. Have shorter outings. Get a much tighter grip on what I agree to and how long I stay. Everything contained, predictable, easier to manage.

Safer. Smaller.

I know that version would probably be easier in a lot of ways. I would have more consistent days. Less fallout. Fewer moments where I feel like I’ve wildly overreached.

I would also miss most of the things that make my life feel like mine. How blooming miserable would that be.

So I keep choosing it.

Not as some grand statement about resilience. I’m not interested in proving anything to anyone, least of all myself. I just know that if I wait until everything feels manageable, I’ll be waiting forever. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t enjoy the aftermath - at all. There are days where it saddens me more than I’d like to admit. Days where I would quite happily opt out of the whole system if that were an option. Days where it feels unfair. I can go to some dark recesses of my mind sometimes where I feel like there is no way I can just live another 30, 40, 50 years of this.

But that feeling passes.

What stays is the memory of the plans I said yes to. The fact that I was there, that I didn’t talk myself out of it, that I let myself have something good even knowing what it would cost.

The bill always arrives. I am forced to pay it every time.

I just refuse to live a life in the safe zone. So bill me, baby - we are going out!