You may recall my recent post about the realities of date night (see We know how to par-tay!), and how hard it is to stay awake long enough to enjoy it. Well, despite how bad an idea we know it is, sometimes we parents do push ourselves beyond our natural limits and successfully 'tie one on'. We still have as much fun as we used to - more, because it's such a rarity and we're so proud of ourselves for still having 'it' - but, boy do we pay a price the next day. I recently had one of those days, the day after my night of invincibility.
Forget the to-do list. Forget anything that you wanted to do. Forget personal hygiene. The day after the night of pretending that 40 is the new 20 is for sleep. Sleep and water and ibuprofen and more sleep. If you're a single parent, you deserve a medal for even attempting a late night out. At least with two parents, you can tag in and out, and provide some barely sufficient level of care to your children.
By the way, if this never happens to you (you're not one to over indulge) that probably means you have the good sense to know your limits and as a result you enjoy the priviledge of mocking us over-indulgers for our weaknesses. Mock away. We deserve it.
We know it's going to hurt to stay up late, to try to keep up with our still-single-and-loving-it friends, but every now and then we have to give it our best effort. It lets us know we're still alive. We feel young again for just a few hours, and the next day our bodies remind us that we are mortal. That day after, when our headaches pound out all other stimuli, we remember all of the good things about our lives that don't involve over-indulging. We swear we'll never do it again. But we're human and our memories aren't that great. We soon forget the pain of the day after, and think... well maybe just this one more time.
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