Lately
On what matters.
Lately my migraines have been so constant and so painful that I can’t remember what it feels like to have days in a row where I just feel normal. I promise myself that if it happens again, I’ll be so grateful. I’ll get up earlier, I’ll smile at landscapers wielding leaf blowers and I’ll mean it. I’ll go to the grocery store and walk up and down every aisle and dance to the music. I’ll say yes to more and not drag my feet to anything. I’ll notice the absence of pressure and thrumming and squeezing and the feeling of someone scraping a quarter up and down the ridges of my brain. And I’ll be so happy.
Lately I’ve been having such crazy brain fog from my migraine meds that I can’t remember things I really want to remember, like my sister’s house code. I know it’s in my mind palace but I can’t find it. I close my eyes and search and search. I can see the numbers but can’t remember their order even though I’ve keyed them in hundreds of times. I stare at the pad until I give up and text my family asking for the code. I decide to go down on my meds. They aren’t helping anyway.
Lately I’ve been going to acupuncture. The acupuncturist Amy says I’m getting stronger and I believe her because I’ve been having fewer moments where I think I’m going to pass out when she inserts the needles. After each adept flick and swirl, she asks, “are you okay? Does it hurt?” I say “I’m okay” and breathe deeply, as I feel pressure radiate along my limbs. We repeat the process countless times. Needles go into my neck, my legs, my feet, my head. I breathe and breathe and breathe until I fall asleep.
Lately I’ve been going to pottery class. Even if my head is splitting, I go to the weekly session, put my phone in my bag, and put my hands on clay. I sit at the wheel and watch as slippy clay gathers along my fingers. I cut into leather-hard pieces with trimming tools. I smooth out the edges with soft sponges. I grab a brush and glaze what’s just been fired. I have no idea what it’ll all become and my work is terrible. I leave and feel lighter and more clear.
Lately I’ve been going to dance class with my sister. It hurts my head to be in the bright studio with the loud music but god does it feel so good to move. We’re breathing so heavily after we do the combination that I almost forget how much pain I’m in. And we’re smiling so hard because we haven’t danced this much in years or decades and we know we’re reading each other’s minds, so happy being together and sharing this moment. We forget about the shape of our bodies, the stress of work and the expectations of life, and just think about moving, turning, and sliding on the floor and finding each other’s gaze and smiling. The tears sit heavily in my eyes as we drive home.
Lately I’ve been feeling like I can’t control much of anything. Time is slipping through my fingers like clay on the wheel and I want so badly to enjoy it. I know this is just a mere taste of illness, of aging, of not living how I want. I’ve been so lucky in a thousand ways to just face this mountain now when for some, this is the only version of life they know.
Lately I’ve been scared of the pain just never going away. (I’m also scared that that sounds pathetic.) But there are things I haven’t tried. I’ve got doctors on the calendar.
In the meantime, my eyes are open to the beauty around me, from my garden that is hanging on despite my lack of attention, to the kind people in my pottery class who said my hideous first bowl was “cool,” to Amy who still checks in with me after every needle. I can’t help but appreciate every single little good thing now. Lately that’s all that matters.
you put such beautiful words together despite your brain hurting, and for that, you are a star. hoping that you can return to yourself soon 🥺💗
Ugh migraine pain is horrible, I am so sorry you are going through it. But it sounds like you’re still able to carve out time for joy, and that is huge!