People always talk about basking in the 'afterglow'. That sweet aftermath of a special day, where you're looking back fondly, holding onto it tightly, reminiscing, already remembering your favourite moments. But for me, the afterglow has always been short-lived. It tends to go: huge life-altering, magical moment...then the instant pit of depression. The ultimate happiness hangover. And this one feels brutal.
As I've crawled my way into adulthood I've made it a priority to try and be present when I feel like something is going to become a moment I want to remember; holidays, concerts, birthdays, the usual big stuff, and as someone who spends a large amount of time in their head, fantasising and romanticising, this has been crucial to bringing me back down to earth. Sometimes it's just having a quiet moment to myself on the beach, feeling the sand on my feet, looking out at the sea, watching the water ripple and the tide force its way past me as I take a photograph in my mind of exactly where I am. I stand there and cling to the moment for dear life because I know what comes after it.
As soon as I'm out of the moment; I land back home, it's 3 am and the night is officially over, the encore has been sung, the walk back to the car, the 9 am teams call the next day, I have a hard time getting to grips with the fact that my life just carries on. Back to reality, as though nothing spectacular happened. As though I didn't just fall in love. As though I didn't just leave school. As though I didn't just scream at the top of my lungs with 80,000 people. As though last night wasn't the best night of my life. No time to process. No time to slowly come down from the highs of life.
I first discovered this feeling when my Nan died when I was 12, just a month before turning 13, quite the opposite of a happiness hangover. She had just died and I had a hair appointment the next day. It felt so silly to go and get my haircut when one of the closest people to me was gone, my first loss, my little heart, broken. I expected everything around me to stop, give me a chance to grieve, lay out a big cosy blanket over reality, for me to just snuggle up into as I processed what had just happened to me. To not have to go to school until I was ready to. To not have to tell people until I was ready to. I very quickly learnt that that's just not how life works, the world doesn't stop for anybody, and yet, 10 years on, I still find it hard to move on.
My entire life from the age of around 7 has been spent loving Taylor Swift, her lyrics became my bible and her music, the soundtrack to my life. So, when I saw her live for the first time, an event I'd be leading up to for over a decade, after seeing her so close to me that I could see the sequins on her bodysuit shake and the dimples form on her face, how was I expected to just go back to work the next day? That doesn't seem fair. I can't even fathom how she feels, playing to 80,000 people, giving the performance of a lifetime, and then sitting in a quiet room alone. Maybe it's the same. Maybe I'm taking this a bit too far comparing my life to Taylor Swift's. But returning back to my everyday life after one of the best days of my entire existence, was a hard pill to swallow, for sure.
I've experienced a happiness hangover this past week, which got me thinking about all the ones before it and trying to fathom how I coped the last time. I got back last week from a holiday to Greece with my best friends, our annual girl's trip, and as you can imagine, I've been down in the dumps that it's all over. It was a week of wild nights, belly laughs, secret sharing, sun cream sharing, morning debriefs and so much eating, that not only gave me a literal hangover but had me feeling so glum the minute I was back home.
What's going to happen after my wedding day? Or the day I finally give birth? I'm scared to feel pure, unapologetic joy because I know that with that, comes the harsh decline afterwards. Am I never going to be able to process a good moment, leave it where it is and move on from it? I think there is no answer...you just do. You get on with life and it finds its ways to get you back down, just to lift you back up again. The key, so I've heard, is making your daily life one that's easier to come down to when you land back on Earth. Slowly, but surely, I am creating that life for myself. But in the meantime, I'll never process a spectacular moment, ever.
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