Oh sleep…

Sleep. My favourite thing to do yet it is also the hardest thing to do sometimes. And tonight is again one of those nights. When I try so hard to correct my sleep schedule and have a good sleep hygiene, it becomes that much more elusive. When sleeping pills can’t even hold onto it. The more I stress over sleeping well and doing all the things ‘right’ to sleep, it becomes an obsession. An obsession that leads to more stress, that wakes me up at 2am. Then I start trying harder fall asleep again for a migraine-free day at work tomorrow and the stress increases. And the time keeps ticking. And the hours pass. And it’ll soon be time to wake up for work. And I’ll have been awake for 5 hours before my day even begins. Oh sleep…why do you do this to me? Can’t you just let me sleep?

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One of those nights, again

It’s one of those nights

Where I hide away in my room to sleep

Where the tears just soak my pillows as I lay down

It’s one of those nights

Where I hate the headache more than ever

Where I’m so tired that not only does the pain never go away, it’s been 3 days of extreme pain and straight up migraines

It’s one of those nights

Where song lyrics hit me hard in the heart

Where I think and I cry and I think

It’s one of those nights

Where I just want the thoughts to stop

Where I just want the pain to go away

Where I just feel so hopeless

Again

(Heh…if I was in a different mood, this could’ve felt poetic)

Contentment.

So it’s been about two months since I got my second tattoo, and many many more months since I had been thinking of getting it. I still have the realism collage tattoo idea swimming around, but thought that I might want to wait until more of my life had passed, or some other monumental thing had happened. This one took much more time to sit on, wondering if I should ask my dad to write me a card for my birthday or ask him to rewrite the phrase in his best writing, etc. But in the end, I thought that the authenticity of the feelings and emotions behind every word at that moment back in time would be lost.

So why these words out of the whole page in my graduation gift? Why not the standard “I love you” written in his handwriting? It’s because I’ve come to realize that when I saw these words, it’s as if all the heavy stones I had placed upon my own shoulders disappeared. I had grown up hearing my dad say that all he needed from me was for me to do my “personal best”. However, the way that I interpreted those words were that I could always work harder and push those boundaries to make my “personal best” even “better”. Instead of an encouraging statement, it became the chains on my ankle, taking away my feelings of accomplishment every time something was finished. My goal in life had become “to make my parents proud”, because I had felt that in disappointing myself every time, I was also a disappointment to them. It didn’t help that all my life, we had butted heads on pretty much every single thing I chose to do.

In addition, there was my headache, which they could not understand. It wasn’t until last year when they started to see that it was more than just a headache like they would get, or a pain in their joints that come and go. That I had been living in constant, never-remitting pain in my head for the last 5 (almost 6) years. And they had finally started to understand how it added an extra level of difficulty for simple, everyday things, so how much harder was it for me to go through with my pharmacy degree and become a pharmacist with it.

So for them to acknowledge 1) my headache and all the difficulties that it challenged me with, and that 2) they were proud of me as always, made me feel that no matter what happens from now on, I could be content. It also made me feel less alone in my battles. Knowing that they were cheering me on from behind, that I was already a winner in their eyes, takes off that burden of winning the competition against myself for their sake. Contentment – a state of satisfaction. To be able to experience this emotion after a decade of working myself to pieces to strive that much further was foreign, but made all the sweat and tears worth it. It doesn’t mean that I’ll stop working hard, its just that I won’t do everything like my life depended on it. All my future successes can just be a bonus (well until I find a new goal to go crazy about…but that’s a whole other topic).

One month healed

The original copy in my graduation gift

The shadow behind

Neurologist appointments always got me feeling depressed after. Not from the appointment itself, but the mental preparation and emotional baggage it entails. In the office, and when I tell my family about how it went, things are stated just as is…facts. To evaluate it like an outsider, to think about options and treatments, to be wholly objective. But once I’m in my room, the floodgate of tears open and I can’t help but think how taxing it is to put all the physical and emotional pain from the headache into words and numbers. I can’t help but think about how you just can’t translate into words and numbers the feeling of being in constant pain for the last 5 (reaching 6) years. And the feeling that yes, I have come to accept the fact that the pain may never go away…but the meaning of that acceptance doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m okay with it. And all the talk about more options and treatments? But when they don’t work…how do I deal with the disappointment that you can’t help but build as you wish your hardest for some….for any relief. So there goes yet another night of crying myself to sleep.

Then I can’t help but think…rather than living a long lengthy life and dying old after decades of being in constant pain, what I would give to die young (if life allows), yet still have a fulfilling life. And I guess that thought has always been there for me. I might be so impulsive at times, wanting to do everything that I can once its possible instead of waiting, because I don’t know if the opportunity will come again. And thinking that life is going to be short, I think will make me try to live it to the fullest even more. Cuz who knows? The headache might even get worse as I get older and make it even more difficult to accomplish the things that I want to do.

So I’m going to allow myself to be a lil more reckless, be a lil more impulsive, and be a lil more adventurous. I’ll keep pushing the boundaries my headache’s locked in for me, and step over the comfort zone. And so a week-long trip to Taiwan is being planned, another tattoo is being scheduled, and I just might sign up for a class at a gym to stay accountable to working exercising into my routine. Just like how I don’t want people to view my headache as a disability, I want to do everything that I can when the sun is at its highest point and the shadow of my headache is barely there. All the small victories count in this endless battle against the headache.

I’ve always been scared of the dark, and shadows are hardly any different. The darkness, the unknown. Even if the object itself is not scary, shadows just feel like there’s so much that could be there. There are so many what-ifs. There are things that we want to avoid, but they follow us like shadows. But, no matter how large the shadow is, or how large the obstacle that makes it, the shadow is proof that there is a light somewhere. A light that is beyond the limitations of the obstacle/shadow.

If you know me you know I got nothing to lose
It’s do or die but this time I’m gonna do
If you know me you know I got nothing to lose

Wake up the statues
Breathe out the dust
Shock of a heartbeat
Rush of the blood
Breaking in to my skin
Feel the burning again
I can’t escape it
It’s time to
Rise up from the shadows

– Shadows – The Afters –