keep your bike lights in your bag & learn to say, “sure, i’ll come”

& remember the suncream

Last night, we had to slip out of a poetry slam in the second fag break, for the most mundane of reasons. Neither me nor Petra had our bike lights with us, and we had to pedal back to mine before it got dark, in order to avoid being fined or, y’know, hit by a car.

The poetry was incredible. Just not quite worth risking my life for. (It almost was, though.)

These past few months, I have accepted offers for things that I would have shied away from a year ago. Unsurprisingly, this has made me braver and better overall! Who’d have thought that the more people you talked to, the easier conversations become? Could anyone have expected that if you take the train alone to London once, you can do it three more times almost effortlessly? And who could have possibly believed that, if you flirt once, you can flirt time and time again?

Mostly though, it’s good to have a little responsibility with your recklessness. I don’t need to accept an invitation back to the house of some guy I have just met at a gig, but I can swap numbers or arrange to meet up again. Let’s stop for fried chicken when we’re partway home, but I’m going to text my dad so he knows I’ll be home past midnight. And take your goddamn bike lights with you so you can stay for the full show.

Already this summer, I have joined a drunken moshpit in a bodycon dress (good choice, bad outfit), booked tickets to go alone to festival with two friends, and cycled twelve miles in high heels. From now on, I am keeping my bike lights in my bag at all times, and saying “sure, I’ll come” to almost any invitation — a party after a gig, or a barbeque in my neighbour’s garden, or ice-cream and belly laughs at my friend’s house.

I want to embrace a marrow-sucking, moment-seizing, “fuck yes!”-ing kind of summer. Complete with bike lights, and SPF 50, and a soupçon of responsibility. You can’t party if you’re at home reapplying aloe vera to your sunburn, after all.