Supplements and Deep Thoughts

So, I'm taking a bunch of supplements now.

I've been taking Vitamin D and iron for a while, and when I had a bout of constipation I started taking magnesium. I've made a few more additions to the pill pile and now my nightstand looks comically full of bottles. There were a few things that spurred this latest purchase and I'm not terribly pleased to admit that unsolicited advice was one of them.

A man I was meeting in a casual/professional setting conversationally asked why we'd moved to our current residence several years ago and I answered I had chronic migraines and couldn't live in the city anymore. This was the most succinct I'd ever been in response to a question like this so I was feeling pretty good until he replied, "I had chronic migraines and cured them with vitamin E." My face went into awkward smile mode and I managed a, "Interesting," and let it hang in the air. The subject changed naturally after a few beats and I left the interaction pleased that I managed not to be too weird.

Anyway, I'm not going to dismiss his suggestion just because it was ill-timed, and I knew I remembered something about vitamin E, so I googled it and the first few results told me that a study had shown that people with hormonally triggered migraines had seen benefit from a moderate daily dose of E. It's not too pricey, so I got a bottle. Also, my hands have been hurting lately, and my back hurts every day, so I'm trying out a glucosamine, msm, cmo blend that is meant to be a veg version of glucosamine chondroitin. And I'm finally giving st john's wort a solid try because I've been struggling with depression off and on for years now, but still can't see a shrink because poor people don't get mental health care unless they are institutionalized or drug addicted. While I was at it I got some vitamin C because cold and flu season is officially here - CA had its first death of the year today.

I'm just a harbinger of doom today, aren't I? Life's a struggle, then we die. I'm not feeling particularly down at the moment, but life in general is feeling pretty heavy and I don't want to pretend it's easier or prettier than it is. I've been thinking about this girl who was doing the insta model thing for thousands of dollars a post and suddenly quit and came out with all this honesty about body image and advertising and how she realizes now that synthetic representations of life aren't doing anyone any good, least of all herself. And then I told my bf earlier, "We're the most messed up animals on the planet because we're cursed with all this self awareness. It's painful and terrible that we should know our place in the universe and be so helpless and futile, our condition reduces us to violent, self-serving babies. But humor balances it out, doesn't it? That we can laugh at our pain, and turn the horrors of living and dying into something we can not only appreciate as a commonality that creates and destroys us all, but something we find humor in, gives us strength and a sort of power. At least, it gives us power over our own emotions and reactions, which is all we can hope for sometimes.

Someone close to me got a bad diagnosis, so I'm having a lot of feelings right now I guess. Send me and mine good thoughts if you've got any to spare.