Tag Archives: migraine

Around the Next Corner

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The most unexpected twists and turns of life arrive with the surprise of a shotgun blast. But the persistent pace of the ever-chasing tortoise is what ultimately helps dry the wet concrete of the foundation beneath our feet.

This very human inability to predict the future is what keeps us driving toward the possibility of a fresh start with every sunrise. If we were to possess a thorough comprehension of our trajectories, that inherent knowledge alone would influence the outcome of decisions and choices we didn’t even know we were making.

So we’re left to wander through these incredibly short lives blindfolded, with arms outstretched and fingers splayed, searching for the grasp of something solid to help steady the spin. Day after day, we turn blank pages in a book waiting to be written, occasionally penning a line or two before we lose the light.

But consistent tenacity is the key. Sometimes simply staying in the game is enough to claim victory. We are not able to forecast the arrival of a rainbow after the rain. So the opportunity to write a new chapter might surface far later than expected.

It would have been inconceivable to envision this beautifully balanced Sunshine State existence while I was in the excruciatingly painful throes of those LA migraines. I spent countless nights searching in vain for any semblance of a glimmer in those infinitely, frightfully dark tunnels.

We can’t see what’s waiting just around the next corner.

The hopeless global desperation experienced by millions of people during this pandemic is further evidence of our supremely frustrating lack of clairvoyance.

It may not have slowed the spread or saved the dying, but a kernel of hope that help was on the way could have delivered the most basic and most lacking resource…perspective.

There’s a reason our planet swims to the current of a constant clock. We like to mark our starts and stops.

Take that away and the blindfold gets a little tighter.

Adolescence Interrupted

Dropping Shoes

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“Western man has tried for too many centuries to fool himself that he lives in a rational world. No. There’s a story about a man who, while walking along the street, was almost hit on the head and killed by an enormous falling beam. This was his moment of realization that he did not live in a rational world but a world in which men’s lives can be cut off by a random blow on the head, and the discovery shook him so deeply that he was impelled to leave his wife and children, who were the major part of his old, rational world. My own response to the wild unpredictability of the universe has been to write stories, to play the piano, to read, listen to music, look at paintings—not that the world may become explainable and reasonable but that I may rejoice in the freedom which unaccountability gives us.” ― Madeleine L’Engle

The headaches are back. They’re not the “bad” kind, so I guess they’re simply the “new” kind. Either way, a giant debilitating pause button has surfaced, and after far too much research and straw grasping, I’ve decided they are best classified as migraines.

Now I’ve always touted the fact that I never got migraines, and I even specifically mentioned it in my book. It seemed more than fair that after all the brain-based obstacles and excruciating pressure pain endured from the complications associated with hydrocephalus that I would be spared any additional suffering once those symptoms retreated. But that’s just not how life works.

We can plan and plot and cross our fingers that once we emerge from the flames, the fire can’t catch us. But whatever is burning behind is also burning ahead. Living is navigating, and no amount of precaution can halt the birth of unforeseeable variables. Duck and weave. Jump and slide.

There is no crystal ball, and no chance for a second take. The cards slid from the dealer are the result of universal randomness and haphazard order. We can play or fold, but the odds won’t transform with a fresh deck.

So instead of analyzing all the ways we might lose if the fates decide it’s not our day to soak in the sunshine, let’s just pull up a seat and roll the dice.

Adolescence Interrupted