Slowly the migraine started, initially triggered by sun glare while driving into work. Add the tension of two auto accidents at the east bound side of the I-75 & 39th Avenue area and I had muscle tension. Then add the persistent psychological stress in the office and the perfect prerequisites for a monstrous migraine have arrived. By the late morning and the added distractions of juggling admin issues with a full morning schedule, I felt like someone had gaffed me in the traps with grappling hooks right after they smacked me in the back of the head with a baseball bat. I forced myself to eat the home packed lunch because low blood sugar just makes the head ache worse but you could have fed me tree bark and metal shavings. I just wanted to go to bed.
I made it home and crawled onto my bed not even bothering with standard nap protocol: pants off and under the covers. I just pulled the top quilt over me and fell asleep. I woke about an hour later to find my oldest son had crawled up onto the other side of the bed and was asleep, too. I laid there listening to him breathe and realized it has been a very long time since I have heard another human being’s breathing while I was sleeping. I closed my eyes and remembered when he was a little bitty thing, Pringled up against me. Even as an infant, I’d wrap him up like a baby burrito and he’d sleep in with me. His older brother would “Lego me”, interlocking his feet and legs and snuggle, even on the sofa.
I laid there and listened to him breathe and realized he’s grown. His feet stick off the end of the bed. Shoot, his little brother is just as big and tall. They are both grown. I quietly got up, leaving him asleep. After I set dinner to cook, I came back only to find him curled up into a small ball in the middle of the big bed. He looked little again for a holographic moment, flashing back and forth between a ginger headed, drooling three year old and a nearly grown man.
My headache was gone.