Be Still, My Brain

Yesterday’s headache was a stubborn one. A kick-ass one. The proverbial moose in the Swarovski crystal outlet (is that a thing? I think I just made that up). When I woke up yesterday it was bad, but it got worse and worse throughout the day. I felt my brain ping-ponging around my skull, a match rivaling any in the Olympics. Sometimes the competition was incredibly fierce. The competitors would ratchet up the velocity and ferocity of the game until the ball was being slammed around so hard I could barely stand. But I did. And that’s why I have so many Oscars. My cabinets overflow with evidence of my acting chops. And the Oscar for the best performance of a teacher goes to…ME!

Today my brain has calmed down a bit, but it still hurts more than usual and now I get the gift of the headache hangover. It’s like those students on spring break who go to Cancun or Indonesia or Greenland or wherever kids go these days and then it’s time to get on the plane because all spring breaks have to end and the entire plane ride back they all have this massive headache. The entire AirBus is one huge winged throbbing machine. Then, upon arriving back at Mom and Dad’s house, they suffer with the aftereffects for a week. A duller ache then the day before, perhaps, but they still wish they were back on that beach, or that ice flow, and the world would just disappear.

I don’t want this chronic pain anymore but until I find the one thing that will conquer it, I have to live with it. Make peace with it. Perhaps there should be a peace summit. My neck, my head, and I would sit at Starbucks (of course this is where my peace accord would be, coffee addict that I am) and discuss terms. But, like any summit of mind leaders, there would be no agreement and they would argue in that polite, passive-aggressive way that career politicians do and then they would hold press conferences and say that the other side won’t agree to certain terms and therefore they won’t sign. 

So now I have to be the adult in the room of body part politicians, amateurs that they are, and keep reminding myself of this quote by Elizabeth Gilbert: “Turn your face stubbornly toward the light and keep it there.” And what’s my light? My light is a head that is calm and pain-free and at rest. I am attempting to turn my face toward this light, but it’s a difficult task when all I want to do is close my eyes and nap.

Be still, my brain. Please, just be still.