The Dark

Yesterday I had one of the worst migraines I’ve had in a really long time. The kind of pain that makes you want to drive an ice pick into your eye until you cant see the handle anymore. That’s where I was 18 hours ago, nauseous and ready to do something crazy.

I stayed in bed. I stayed in bed from about 1:30pm on, only getting up to fumble in the dark, drink water, and take more meds. Now -- 2000mg of ibuprofen and one multivitamin later -- the pain still remains, though the intensity has dulled.

It was nice outside yesterday, or it wasn’t, I honestly can’t remember. These things take control of me. They slam me down in the dark and don’t let me up until they’re done, held captive in the abyss of my four walls and ceiling. How long will it last? How long till it goes away? How. Long.

With a migraine all you have to worry about is time.

I dreamt. I dreamt about a lot of things. I had a dream I hadn’t had since I was laid up with my tonsils removed. Since I was on 300mg of OxyContin 2 years ago. It was horrifying.

Someone was giving birth on a salad bar. Old men and women in business suits were sitting in pews, lined up like they were at church. They were all fixated on the young woman giving birth. There was something wrong. The baby was coming out of her forehead and just then everyone started throwing up their brain.

Yeah, I would have rather not relived that one.

Amelie kept me company. I remember her hard little paws walking around the bed, searching for the right place to curl up, finally making a home in the small of my back. This is home to only a select few.

Kelly stopped by. She was running the parkway and dropped in to see how I was doing. I tried to pull myself up and hold a conversation. It was moderately effective. I only remember her smiling at my door. She never gets headaches so she has trouble relating. After about 20 minutes she was on her way again and I was back to the dark.

I know the dark well; I'm no stranger to it. I spend a lot of my time there. Funny thing about the dark though, sometimes it’s all we have. That is until someone turns on the light, and we realize that now we can never really go back to the dark again.

For some reason a migraine isn’t as bad if you have that.