Headache

Sometimes I get these headaches. These dull, throbbing headaches in the back of my head, slightly toward the left side. The pulsing sensation spiders out to the rest of my head.

These headaches used to follow a night of heavy drinking. “Never again!”, I proclaimed again and again.

This New Year’s, thanks to my friend Adam, I was able to quit drinking. I lost all desire to do so, and with it, hangovers. So I thought.

Sometimes these “hangovers” happen because I had done yoga in the morning, biked for an hour, and forgotten to drink water. Dehydration headaches. Lesson learned: I make sure to hydrate myself sufficiently.

Sometimes they happen because I slept too much and in a weird position. I think tonight’s “hangover” happened because of this.

Tonight I took my bronchitis medicine and went to sleep. Within an hour and a half, I woke up with a headache. I was still sleepy—my eyes were too tired to browse blogs on my iPhone—yet the throbbing was unbearable.

I decided to take a walk. I got dressed and headed out the door. My dad asked where I was going. I told him I’m taking a walk, I have a headache.

“You have a headache?”

I stared at him for a minute, said something curt, and left.

Waiting for the elevator, I realized that the combination of being rudely awakened, in pain, and reminded of how insignificant I am in my father’s eyes caused me to lash out at him. I jotted a note to myself, “Not feeling well is not an excuse to be a dick.”

As I walked in the streets, I felt a chill and realized I should have brought a jacket. I went back up and picked up my hoodie. On my way out, as a better-late-than-never gesture, I politely told my dad that I was going out again.

I walked alongside the water, clearing my head, distracting my mind from the pain. By the time I walked to the end of the trail, the headache was still there but my body was reminding me that it was still sleepy. I walked back.

As I neared the apartment I finally got my focus back. I became present. The predominant thoughts how my dad’s such a dick subsided. The pain was still there, but I was able to just observe it, rather than identifying with it.

I realized that my animosity toward my dad may never go away, and accepted that as another fact of life. I will keeps fighting the barriers between us, of course: my weapons are compassion, tolerance, and patience.