The Absence of Pain

I woke up a little before 6am with a migraine. That’s always the worst scenario for me. I’ve had migraines since I was a teenager. They used to be horrific - the kind where you just want someone or something to put you out of your misery, and you mean it. The kind where you’re crawling on your hands and knees like a wild animal, trying to find some relief, or you have your face pressed against the cold bathroom floor tiles because you need to be near the toilet in case you throw up again. The kind where it hurts to sob even though you want to, so you don’t let yourself because the pressure of crying would put you over the edge. The kind where sometimes you have to go to the ER and get morphine because otherwise it feels like the pain might kill you. Probably the kind you get when you’ve spent too many years swallowing your rage and trying to be good, nice, polite. That shit will make you sick, one way or another.

It isn’t like that anymore, and it hasn’t been like that for a couple of decades. I certainly try to be kind, but I don’t waste my time or energy on “nice.” I don’t laugh at offensive jokes to be polite, and in the last few years I’ve reached the necessary deficit on remaining fucks to give to call it out when someone is an asshat, right there in the moment. Yoga helped tremendously, and so did getting older. Understanding boundaries - how to create and defend them - how to walk away when that’s the only option, how to recognize manipulation and hold my ground, how to stop people-pleasing and hating myself for it, how to stop trying to make everything okay for everyone all the time (still working on that some days). A lot of things helped - writing, therapy, repeating old patterns until I got the lessons - usually the hard way. I get migraines a lot less frequently, usually just around my cycle - but who knows what that is anymore, because perimenopause, yay. If I feel a migraine coming on during the day, I take my medication and it’s almost always handled within 20 minutes, before it even kicks in. But if I get one while I’m sleeping and it has time to get cooking? Then it’s not pretty.

Photo by Ladd Greene on Unsplash

It’s a dread-filled, horrible way to wake up because there isn’t any time to acclimate, you’re just instantly in a situation. You’re like the frog in the pot of slowly boiling water, and you wake up when it’s too late - you’re just fucked. And even though I’ve been through this countless times and know I’m going to be okay, there’s still a little panic about how long it’s going to take and how bad it’s going to be. This morning, after sitting in bed holding my head for a few minutes, I got up, took my rizatriptan - the dissolvable kind - and I also took a zyrtec because I wasn’t sure if it was sinus-related since I felt congested. Then I tried to go back to sleep, but I was in too much pain and being horizontal made it worse, so I went to the kitchen and made coffee. That’s when the groceries were delivered, because I guess I forgot to select a time. So I got the coffee going, brought the groceries in and unpacked them, unloaded the dishwasher, and filled the dog’s food and water bowls. He’d ambled out to the kitchen with me, even though he likes to sleep in. He always knows when I’m not okay.

After all that was done, I propped myself up on the couch so my head was above my heart. I sent messages to a woman who’s been taking my yoga classes online for years, because we were supposed to zoom at 9am. She and her husband came to my Portugal retreat in June and wanted to talk about a personalized yoga program they could maintain. They’re the loveliest people and I felt terrible rescheduling, but I knew I wasn’t going to be my best even if it had subsided by then. She couldn’t have been kinder or more understanding, and it might sound strange, but when I’m in pain like that and someone is compassionate, the gratitude I feel is like forty times what it would be normally. And it would be a lot, normally.

Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash

My housekeeper showed up at 8am. Her name is Flor, and she comes twice a month. I found her when my kids were tiny and I was doing the single mom thing and also running a business, teaching a full schedule of classes, and writing until 2am - the only time I had after my kids were asleep. Please do not fuck with single moms - like ever - because it is hard and there is very little support. We’ll get back to that later. Flor is the best person. My son used to shadow her when he was a toddler. She’d give him a spray bottle full of water and a rag, and he was happy as pie following her around the house. I’d get a little break, even if I just used it to answer emails so I wouldn’t have to do that at 10pm, or so I could close my eyes for a few minutes while my baby daughter slept on me. Neither of my kids were great nappers, they’d just pass out on the go. Flor probably saved my life, or at least my sanity, but probably my life. This morning when she saw me she knew right away I wasn’t okay. She came and put a soft hand on my forehead, the way some mothers do. I could cry writing that. Fuck it, I’m crying writing that. 

At about 8:30am I could feel the grip around my brain starting to release a little. I knew to stay still and wait until it was a sure thing, because you can screw yourself if you start moving around too fast. It took another fifteen minutes of resting and keeping my eyes closed. The curtains in my house are still mostly drawn, but the pain is gone. Those of you who get migraines will understand the relief that courses through your body when you feel you’re okay again. The absence of pain is so beautiful it takes your breath away and reminds you to appreciate when it’s “just” a normal day with normal things that need to get done. The absence of agony, nausea - it reminds you that there’s no such thing as a normal day, that every day you wake up and feel good is a day to cherish, even when the world - and certainly this country - is full of people who question your value if you’re a girl or woman. 

Maybe the migraine I had was hormonal, or maybe it’s the pressure I feel because apparently, once I’m a “post-menopausal female” my only use will be to look after my grandkids! No one told me about that until yesterday! Give a girl a heads up, ffs. I could have planned for this. I don’t know how long I’ll be in perimenopause - my mother got her period randomly until she was sixty-two - so it could be a while if I’m like her. And I’m not sure what my value is while I’m going through perimenopause, but I’m sure JD will weigh in on that soon since he’s going after all kinds of women - childless cat ladies, mothers-in-law who might, I dunno, not be in a position to drop everything and move in to be the full-time caregiver for a year, single moms, gay moms, women who struggle with infertility, women who have lost children and never forget that for a single day, women who made the choice not to have kids (you’re the worst in his book, you heathen witches not performing your womanly duties), and pretty much anyone who is not heteronormative and of reproductive age. Which I guess by the GOP standards these days is like, twelve? I mean it must be, because there are so many Republican-run states where twelve-year-olds can’t get abortions even due to rape or incest - which, let’s be real - is the only way a twelve-year-old gets pregnant. 

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I don’t even know why you’re reading my essay, tbh, you should probably go find something written by a straight white man? Their value doesn’t seem to fluctuate at all according to JD, which is cool, cool. Thing is, my kids are fifteen and seventeen, so if I go into actual menopause in the next few years, that will be too early for me to throw in the towel on my own aspirations to take care of my grandkids because I won’t have any grandkids yet. I guess I could volunteer? It’s funny because I feel really inspired these days, like I’m finally, finally stepping into my power after fifty-three years in the patriarchy, but, oh well. I must be mistaken about the worth and wisdom of anything I’d have to say now that I’ve reached this in-between, almost-useless point in my life.

So like, what use am I? 

That might have been the thing that brought on the migraine, except it 100% did not because that is some serious, outrageous and offensive bullshit right there - absolute garbage thinking - and yet, these are the views held by one of the men running to be vice president of these divided states. Terrific.

It is unfathomable to me that anyone from any party could be supporting these horrible, awful, extremely weird men at this point and I mean that. If Republicans want to win, they need to take their party back from people who want to control girls and women, are openly racist, homophobic, transphobic, tampon-phobic, sexist, morally bankrupt, and unfit to lead in every measurable way. Wait, let me tell you how I really feel.

Yesterday, the criminal some people call the former president traveled to North Carolina for a rally where his good buddy Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson spoke. Robinson is running for governor of North Carolina, and Donald Trump endorses him. Robinson has said if he becomes governor he will ban abortion without exception. Meaning, not even to save the mother’s life. Meaning, not even if a twelve-year-old is raped. Meaning no one in North Carolina will be able to have an abortion for any reason at all if he gets his way. He says women should learn to keep their pants up or pull their skirts down. I guess no men are involved, these must be immaculate conceptions. He says he’d like to go back to a time when women did not have the vote. Please, do not take my word for it, just Google, but be prepared because it gets worse from there. I really cannot bear to write about the horrific ways he has shown himself to be a danger to the LGBTQ community, the way he’s called the Holocaust into question, or anything else he’s had to say about pretty much anything under the sun. (Here is where you can support the guy running against him, Josh Stein).

And the man running for (arguably) the most important job in the country endorses Mark Robinson. How does any woman, any Republican, anyone anywhere want this for our country? These are not normal times, and these are not normal people. We aren’t picking between candidates with one fundamental difference - Republicans like small government and Democrats like big government - those days are long gone.

We are choosing between a party that might be more liberal than you’d like, but certainly views girls and women as equal to boys and men, thinks everyone regardless of race, gender or socioeconomic status ought to be able to have clean water to drink, clean air to breathe, a good education, equitable infrastructure, and affordable healthcare - that senior citizens should be able to count on Social Security and Medicare, that we ought to take care of our veterans, protect the Department of Education and the Department of Homeland Security, and avoid privatizing the Transportation Security Administration - and that all people ought to be able to love who they love, pray how they pray, and have bodily autonomy…

…and people who absolutely do not believe any of that, and say so loudly and proudly every day. They aren’t kidding and it isn’t funny, it’s abhorrent. 

I don’t know what brought on my migraine. Maybe it was hormones, and maybe it was the continual affront to my mind and heart about everything that matters most to me in this world. We aren’t going to agree on everything, of course, but really, we ought to be able to agree that people like this don’t belong anywhere near The White House, the halls of power, the nuclear codes, or any of our children. Have you ever gotten involved with a narcissist? It’s all about them - they talk in circles, they’re never wrong, they never apologize, they focus on the one, tiny, meaningless detail - say, for example, crowd size - and never get to work really listening, or trying to put themselves in anyone else’s shoes. They attack, they bob and weave, they attack some more. The truth is, they don’t care about other people, they don’t feel empathy. You can feel sad for them, because that’s usually the result of a failure to connect with a primary caregiver in early childhood, but you don’t want that person to be your president.

We have serious problems to solve and we need serious, compassionate people to solve them, together. None of us will get everything we want, but we ought to be able to care about each other as neighbors, don’t you think? Waking up to the absence of malice, hatred, vitriol and fear would feel great, wouldn’t it? The way things have been is exhausting and painful and not okay. And I can tell you, when we wake up without all this anguish, it’s going to be such a relief. Such a huge, collective weight lifted from our shoulders. We’re going to want to celebrate, kiss the ground, hug a tree, dance in the streets. It’s going to be like that cool hand on your forehead when you need it the most. Let’s make it happen. Let’s fucking go.

If you’d like to meet me in real time to talk about the response to intense, unrelenting pain…and also the response to the absence of it, I’ll be here 8/16/24 at 11:15am PST or you can wait for the Come As You Are podcast version. As ever, I’m so grateful you’re here. Thank you for spending time with me.