You See the Party. You Don't See the Recovery.
You see the house. Clean. Suspiciously clean. Floors scrubbed, counters shining, that one candle lit that makes it smell like I have my entire life together. You walk in and think, wow, she really has it all together. Pause for laughter. Because what you're seeing is the final product. The highlight reel. The Pinterest board that somehow, against all odds, came to life in my actual living room.
You see a beautifully set table. A fruit tray that looks like I casually threw it together in five minutes, and if you compliment it I'll say something like "oh, this? Just something quick," while knowing full well it was a full production behind the scenes, marshmallow peep kabobs assembled with the seriousness of a surgeon, veggies strategically arranged into a cross like I'm auditioning for a spot on the Food Network. You see cute little crafts laid out for the kids, ready to go, no mess in sight. You see matching shirts I "just made," because of course I did. Totally normal to decide at 9:47 p.m. the night before an event that everyone needs custom matching shirts, and then refuse to go to bed until it's finished, fumes from the iron-on vinyl and all.
What you don't see is the chaos underneath it, the chaos that I may or may not secretly love. Because here's the truth nobody really talks about. I thrive in this. The planning. The decorating. The creating something out of nothing. In another life I was one hundred percent an event planner, or a wedding coordinator, or somebody yelling into a headset going, "we need more balloons on table three, people, let's move." Turning something ordinary into something special is genuinely my thing, and yeah, maybe I love the chaos of it just a little more than I let on.
But here's the part you actually don't see. You don't see me leaning against the counter mid-party, pretending I'm just checking my phone, when really I'm trying to survive the fact that my whole body suddenly feels like it got hit by a truck. For no reason. Just vibes, apparently, according to my own nervous system. You don't see me going inside on a perfect spring day, not because I want to, not because I don't want to be out there with everyone else in the sunshine, but because the sun is personally attacking me like I owe it money. Sunscreen, yes. Shade, also yes. Dignity, long gone, somewhere back around the second time I had to explain why I was hiding under the pergola in July.
You don't see the moment the house empties. The second the last person leaves and the door shuts behind them, and I don't even change clothes. I just stay in whatever I was wearing, curl up in a blanket on the couch, and think, well, that was fun, I think I actually died a little. You don't see the next day either. The dishes. The laundry. The life that does not pause just because I hosted something the night before. Work still needs done. Soccer still happens. Kids still need things, on schedule, whether or not my body got the memo. And my body, most days after something like that, is basically saying, respectfully, no.
Living with an autoimmune disease, like lupus, is a strange kind of existence, because sometimes I look completely fine. Better than fine, honestly, hosting, smiling, creating, doing all the things, looking like a woman who has it together in every possible way. And then sometimes my body just clocks out without notice. No warning. No schedule. No polite heads-up that says you might want to sit down soon. Just, surprise, everything hurts today, good luck out there.
And the worst part, if I'm honest, is that I had a good stretch. A really good stretch, the kind where you slowly start to let your guard down and think, wait, is this it, is this my new normal now, maybe I've turned some kind of corner. Spoiler alert. It is not. Because nothing hits quite like feeling normal again for a while and then getting knocked right back down without so much as a warning shot. It's frustrating. It's exhausting. It's a little bit "are you kidding me right now" energy, every single time it happens, even though I logically know by now that it will happen again. And yes, it makes me angry sometimes. And sad. Because I remember what it felt like to not hurt, to move through a day without negotiating with my own body first, and I liked her, that version of me. She was fun. She got things done without needing a recovery plan like she'd just run a marathon instead of hosted a birthday party.
But also, I'm still going to host. I'm still going to decorate. I'm still going to make the shirts at 10 p.m. like a slightly unhinged craft goblin who cannot be talked out of it. Because this life, messy, beautiful, exhausting, chaotic, all of it tangled together, is mine. I don't get a version without the pain, and I've stopped waiting around for one before I let myself enjoy the good parts.
What you see is real. The joy. The effort. The love behind all of it, the peep kabobs and the matching shirts and the candle that makes the house smell like I've got it together. But what you don't see is real too. The pain. The recovery. The quiet, wrecked moments after the noise clears out and everyone's gone home and it's just me and the couch and a body that's still catching up on the bill. And somehow, most days, I carry both. Not because I've figured out some perfect balance, but because there isn't really another option, so I just do it anyway.