RSVP

The Diagnosis

You say "maybe" because "yes" feels like a commitment your body cannot physically honor and "no" feels like a small betrayal of the people you love. "Maybe" is a third door. "Maybe" is a spiritual middle ground. You have said "maybe" to eight events this month, and you have attended zero, and you already knew, when you said it, that you would attend zero. The saying of "maybe" is, for you, a small act of emotional tax — a way of at least feeling like you considered it.

The plan exists for two weeks. It lives in your calendar. You look at it on Tuesday and you think that'll be fine. You look at it on Thursday and you think I hope I have the energy. You look at it on Friday at 3pm and you text "hey so sorry, I'm really not feeling well, can we raincheck" and you feel, simultaneously, guilty and relieved in a ratio that has become familiar. The guilt wears off. The relief does not. The relief lies down next to you on the couch and holds your hand. That is the moment you have been waiting for all week.

You are not lazy. You are overloaded in a way that has become structural. You have been saying yes with your mouth and no with your body for so long that the two have stopped speaking to each other. You will go one of these times. You will. You will show up, and it will be fine, and you'll remember that you genuinely love seeing these people, and then you'll say yes to the next thing, and then at 3pm the following Friday you'll text "hey so sorry" again, and the cycle will continue. Nobody is keeping track but you. And you are keeping very close track.