My Birthday and Planning

Things are just too busy with school and the upcoming trip to AZ. (So busy that I'm not getting around to posting this until after the AZ trip. Which will be covered when I recover. Until then, please enjoy last week's thoughts.)


In the planning stages, I started feeling overconfident, I fear, because I was thinking I'd be able to power through a mild-moderate migraine for the several days that I will be required to be as functional as possible, and then I would just sleep and whine for a week or two after to recover. It sounds so easy when I say it like that. I thought I had this situation under control, until I missed my own birthday party.

My birthday was on the twelfth, and we spent the day quietly. There was to be a big family party the next day, so my boyfriend and I opted to celebrate by driving out to our local wharf and eating tourist food, namely calamari and clam chowder in a bread bowl. We ate in the car, looking over the ocean, and I decided I wanted to check out the boardwalk. I thought it would be closed for the season, and I could take some pictures of eerie quiet. It was, unfortunately, not at all quiet.

The rides were running, that we could see as we got closer, but since it didn't appear to be very busy, we attempted to take a walk through to see if there was anything worth photographing. Despite hosting only a trickle of human activity, every single ride, game and food booth had a speaker attached to it, blaring music, and a few of the rides had their own soundtracks playing, so there was the bonus of conflicting rock songs to heighten the effect.

I was a goner as soon as we walked in, I just didn't know it yet.

We left within a few minutes, and I'd hoped that I'd gotten out of there fast enough to avoid any major repercussions. We got to the car and my boyfriend's back was hurting him, so I offered to drive home. I thought I'd be ok, since the sun was setting, I wouldn't have it in my eyes or glaring off of other cars, and if I can hit that magical hour before it really gets dark, the headlights don't bother me much either.

My confidence sank as the sky got dark a lot faster than I anticipated and I endured a solid ten minutes of brain-melting headlights I couldn't look away from before I pulled into our driveway. I managed to get us home safely enough, but I didn't feel well at all that night. I hoped I'd get some amazing sleep and wake a new woman, and I did indeed sleep very well that night, but it was clear from about an hour after I got up that I would not be attending my birthday party that day.

It's my mom's birthday, too, so they still had a gathering without me. I'm glad they did, I hate spoiling the party. I'm sure it's not fantastic for the guests to hear that one of the birthday-girls is ill, but I stayed home knowing that if I tried to be there, I'd end up crying in the bathroom or yelling at some unsuspecting uncle or leaving as soon as we arrived because the drive is enough in itself for one day, and those outcomes would have been a much bigger disappointment for everyone.

Big parties are so hard on me now, even on a good day, I'm starting to think I should avoid them altogether. I have no idea how to break that one to the family, though.

I did see my mom, a few days later, and she was fine with the delayed visit because she's the best. We talked for hours and had dinner, just my parents, my partner, my brother and me, until my head was threatening to fall off my neck. After a few days' recuperation from that visit, I had a birthday lunch with my grandfather, who is also very understanding of migraines and we had a lovely meal and a chat, because he is also the best.

We're leaving next week, so this weekend will be packing and planning the trip as much as I can, while trying to get ahead on homework and clean the house with whatever energy I've got to spare. We'll be gone about a week, which is just long enough for us to need pretty much everything we have in our house. Lists, lists, and more lists, my notebook is my only friend when I've got this much going on. I'm hoping that by being hyper-organized, I'll give myself some freedom to relax in the moment and I'll be able to make the most out of this winter trip to the desert.