at the end of a long, dark tunnel

Evidently, there is more going on in my life than I want to admit to myself. Yesterday, about an hour after arriving at work my vision tunneled, my right hand tingled, and my hairline felt like it would split open. Luckily (if you can call it that), this time I knew what was going on. A migraine. This time I was not alone in a foreign country, 9 hours off of the time zone of everyone I cared about, and separated from everyone around me by a language barrier (although, "migraine" is the same word in both English and French, and carries the same sympathetic weight no matter where you say it). Instead, this time I simply left work, took the bus home, and huddled under the covers of my bed with a heavy dose of Advil and caffeine until 6pm, when the pain finally subsided. Happily, I'm well rested now.

What surprises me about this episode is how rarely I get migraines. I can only specifically recall 3 instances that were distinctly migraines: after high school graduation, in Paris, and yesterday. The previous two I had attributed to the denouemont of a climax of stress. Only problem with this theory: what the heck have I been stressed about? I suppose if you really look at it, I've been stressed out ever since I graduated from UW. Finding a job, learning a new job, buying a car, christmas, getting the car tabs and ensuing processes... I've really never stepped off of a roller-coaster since last December. So no wonder really.

The question is how the heck I'm going to manage to deal with my stress, since the sources aren't actually going to go away. I still have to deal with working, having and affording my car, and day-to-day life. This summer I'm hoping to make a dent. Hopefully a few backpacking trips will ease the pain of the daily grind. Snowboarding is making a big dent in the Real World growing pains, while adding in the stress. Maybe I really need to find a source of relaxation that I'm not trying yet... like doing a short yoga practice on a more daily basis, or at least meditating. Where I'm going to find time for that, I'm not sure seeing as how I've failed to find the time to merely clean up my room for ages.

At the very least, I think Saturday is going to be for me. A little cleaning, a little coffee shopping, a little farmer's market and tasty cooking. Definitely wine.

Yes, that will make the migraines stay away. Perhaps migraines aren't that bad... they give me a chance to remember, every year and a half or more, that I'm pushing myself too hard and not taking advantage of what I do actually have going for me.