I have discovered that one of the strangest things about being unwell is feeling guilty when you feel well.
It seems counterintuitive, almost rude. Surely if you have spent enough time feeling exhausted, uncomfortable, frustrated, or limited, a good day should feel like winning the lottery. And sometimes it does.
But sometimes a good day arrives and instead of simply enjoying it, a tiny part of my brain immediately starts asking questions. Are you sure you're allowed to enjoy this? What if tomorrow is awful? What if you're only feeling better because you've accidentally overdone it and the consequences are currently loading? Apparently, even happiness requires risk assessment.
A genuinely good day can feel strangely fragile. You wake up and realise your body isn't arguing with you. You make a cup of tea. You shower, get dressed without needing to negotiate with yourself, leave the house, and do something completely ordinary. And somewhere around lunchtime you realise: Oh. I'm actually having a nice day.
Then comes the inevitable temptation to use it.
Because if you have limited energy, a good day can feel like finding money in an old coat pocket. You don't want to waste it, so you start spending. I'll clean the house. I'll go to the shops. I'll catch up with someone. I'll cook something properly. I'll probably also reorganise the entire kitchen while I'm at it. The good day becomes a productivity opportunity, and before long, the thing that was supposed to be enjoyed has become another shift at work.
I've done this more times than I care to admit. A little energy appears and I immediately behave as though I have been granted temporary access to a completely different body, making plans for Future Me based on the assumption that Present Me has discovered a permanent solution. She hasn't. She just had a good Tuesday. There is something particularly cruel about the idea that rest must always be justified by illness. If I'm exhausted, resting makes sense. If I'm in pain, resting makes sense. But if I'm having a lovely day? Surely I should be doing something, seeing someone, or making the most of it.
Perhaps making the most of a good day doesn't mean squeezing every possible activity into it. Perhaps it means sitting somewhere comfortable and noticing that you're happy. Drinking your tea while it's still hot, going for a slow walk without turning it into exercise, or watching something you've already seen because you don't have the energy to emotionally invest in a new plot. Doing absolutely nothing useful.
This is surprisingly difficult. We are very good at measuring days by what happened during them; how much you accomplished, how far you went, who did you see. We don’t have nearly as many ways of measuring how peaceful you felt, how much you laughed, or whether you spent an afternoon without feeling like you were fighting your own body. Those things don't fit particularly neatly into a productivity app, but perhaps they're the things that matter.
I'm trying to stop treating good days like coupons that expire at midnight. I don't need to spend every ounce of energy simply because it happens to be available, nor do I need to prove that I deserved the good day by making it productive. I can just have it. I can let it be nice.
And if tomorrow is difficult again, that doesn't mean today's happiness was irresponsible. It just means tomorrow is tomorrow.
For now, the kettle is on, the sun is coming through the window, and my body, for once, appears to have temporarily withdrawn its complaint. I'm going to try not to ask too many questions. I'm just going to enjoy it.