Life Lately

A quick update on work and life.

Photo by Bich Tran on Pexels

Here in the Northeast, it’s been raining non-stop. Today, there’s a brief respite, with sun breaking through the clouds, but the forecast does not look promising: two sunny days followed by another week of rain and clouds.

I get migraines, and I’m almost certain that weather is a trigger for me. (I do not want to entertain the idea that it could be coffee, chocolate, or dairy.) This week, I had a migraine that lasted from Tuesday through Friday.

Migraines make me tired. The medication I take for migraines, while it almost never actually relieves my migraine pain, makes me tired. The dreary, rainy weather also makes me tired. The result? Languishing on the struggle bus all week with barely any energy.

Weeks like this — when I’m fatigued and not feeling well — everything falls apart. The first thing to go: eating well and exercising. I aim to exercise three to four times a week, and when I’m feeling like a normal, non-exhausted human being, I can do that. But this week, I barely had enough energy to drag myself out of the house. I missed all my favorite dance and yoga classes at the gym, and only made it there once for a brief session on the elliptical, which I forced myself to do because I had a checkup with my dermatologist on Tuesday and her office is down the street from my gym.

Eating well? Nope. With my fatigue, I couldn’t get to the grocery store this week. So instead I cobbled together whatever was already on hand for dinners: hummus and toast with sliced cucumbers, frozen veggie burgers, TV-dinner-style mac and cheese, and pasta with tomato sauce. And randomly, throughout the week, pickles (hello, “Girl Dinner”). After exhausting all the options, I ended the week with takeout last night.

I tried to cut myself slack and remind myself that having a migraine actually means that I’m sick, and it’s ok if I need to take lots of naps and do very little. But it’s incredibly frustrating because, while my migraines aren’t as frequent or severe lately, they’re still more frequent than I’d like and pretty debilitating. One of my biggest struggles is feeling like it’s hard to gain momentum in my positive habits, like exercising and cooking and healthy eating, and in my work and career, because it feels like something is always taking me out for several days or weeks at a time. Then I lose my momentum and have to start all over again.

Anyway, today is sunny; my migraine is gone, thankfully; and I have a decent amount of energy. And despite feeling like sh*t for most of the week, lots of good things are still happening. Here’s an update on my life lately.