The flicker! Oh how I am scared of that sudden zigzaggy flashing in my eyes, which reduces my sight. It's a sign of doom, of my impending migraine. And yes, it really feels like an attack. It comes out of nowhere and tells me that I overdid it again.
Lately and that means yesterday and three months ago, it started on my dog walks. I'm working on my arms with eight pound weights at the same time and one of those moves obviously strained my neck. Okay, got it, that's the physical reason and I will avoid bending my arms towards my back. What's the "deeper" cause? Last May it was emotional, an unexpected slap into my face from a woman friend, which derailed me. What I had seen as relationship on its way to "perfect" took the opposite turn. Yesterday it hit me after I published a blog post, standing up for not over editing and bravely letting it go and be read. After posting it I went through a stack of manuscript pages. Sending my editor the first 5 chapters and "really mean it" was the first important step after our are we a good fit? test drive with a random chapter a few days ago. Oh gawd, what if she hates my writing? I edited again and again, just one more time...!! My dog stared at me; when the heck will you finally GET UP?
I hit send. I got up, a couple stress waves too late. My fear of not being good enough resulted in a migraine. Darn. I thought I was over that freaking belief.
I know what to do when I see the flicker; I run home, swallow Vit C, B and garlic pills with a lot of water, I breathe deeply. Usually I lie down in my dark bedroom, feet up and hoping it passes. Yesterday I felt that I needed to move first; I shook my hands and feet in my garden as if pushing out the tension. I did a furiously quick body scrub. I had a cold shower. I laid down with a hot towel around my neck. Please. I don't want to be "stupid" again.
The flicker disappeared. The fear flared up. I am alone. What if I'm loosing my mind and nobody knows?
Breathe.
Caspar David Friedrich, pralines and cream... my son is Luca, my dog is Nikita...I still had it... My book is... What? Who? My code words to check if I still had my full mental capacity disappeared; parts of my brain had gone dark.
"I'm here, I'll talk you through it," said my son on the phone.
I began yawning relieved to hear his voice, suddenly I was terrible tired. Instead of sleeping and possibly waking up still babbling nonsensical stuff I talked and talked. It was slightly scrambled stuff, not as bad as last time when I wasn't able to verbalize anything. The physical action might have helped to reduce the impact. This time I was only half "gone", I still remembered certain things and was able to verbalize half of what I thought. The horror though was knowing that I couldn't get to images stored in my brain. That was the worst; like not to remember the content of the book I'm writing. Help, I am brain impaired...
"Breathe," said my son, "you will be fine."
Why do we remember certain things and others are simply gone? Why did I perceive some of reality but, like his stories, didn't "get" the rest? I heard his words but they made no sense. I usually understand concepts and philosophies or enjoy stories when I can visualize what I hear or read, perhaps my brain's image processing section is numbed during these attacks?
30 minutes later my son said, "You sound better." I had not even realized but my reality had slowly come back to me, the stories in my head which I love so much, were back.
I was so grateful for him and the billions of beautiful cells in my body, which didn't let me down. I visualized hugged my brain.
What's the action, Universe? What can I do other than fierce shaking of hands and feet to never ever feel "brain dead" again?
"I don't need to be perfect", was my mantra since quite a while but reframing our brains is not easy. The task is to continue and exercise; like writing and publishing blogs now a couple times per week. Fast and with fun. That's my warrioress Kung Fu.
What else? I opened my Ageless Rebel FB page. Short before the migraine smacked me I had asked, "What would you like to see here more often? Or more of?" My friend Nancy Mac responded, "I think it would be nifty to get the red carpet treatment of our own gifts and talents....wouldn’t it be nice to build a stage for the women we already are, celebrities in our own lives."
Wow, I loved this. The pink carpet. Celebrating achievements, something we often forget in our thriving to be better. An ode to us, to who we are in the moment, to the journeys.
My book title is
Thank you for the flowers.
A journey to the magic of YES.
This was perfection!!! Thank you, Nancy.
The Universe had answered. "You already got the flowers, honor them, go, put them in a beautiful vase."
I am grateful for my ambitious inner journalist who wants me to publish award winning stories, but today I thank my inner girl, who plays without judgments, just curious where the journey and her words will guide her.
Action of the moment?
I am posting this without my perfectionist's frets.
