Migraine Hangovers and Country Music

September 25, 2022

I get migraines a lot. If you’ve ever had one, you know that it’s like a headache, but the kind of headache that can be debilitating and derail an entire day (or three). The pain can sit right on top of one side your forehead, but can also wrap around to the back of your head, down your neck and back. It makes it difficult to think, difficult to eat because of nausea…hell, just being up right in a room with the lights on can feel like it might kill you. It’s not a fun time, and I typically get about one bad one each month. I’ve tried to figure them out over the years – talking to doctors about birth control options that might help, eating habits I can change, preventative medication. A dentist hypothesized that my overbite might contribute to them, so I did Invisalign a few years ago. I’ve had eye exams and glasses prescriptions, I swore off red and white wine years ago, I’ve kept food diaries and tried to pinpoint foods that are correlated – so far I’ve had no luck in this battle, and it seems like they are just something I have to live with. Luckily, they make some pretty heavy duty medication I can take when one comes on. It’s expensive and my instructions from the doctor were to “use sparingly”. Usually I tough these migraines out and try not to miss any work because of them – once I was scheduled to brief the head-bitch-in-charge of my sector and didn’t hesitate to break that emergency glass and take a nice dose of meds that day. You do what you gotta do.

The great thing about migraines is that they always end. The migraine is one of those annoying life afflictions that can make you feel like you’re going to die, but simultaneously you know you won’t die from it, so there’s not a lot of stress involved. Only suffering. And that’s how I prefer to take my suffering – with little to no stress and a lot of sugar. There is this period after the migraine has abated that I like to call the “migraine hangover”. I took my emergency meds or slept it off and I wake up the next morning with no pain – but I have this fuzzy feeling in my head that’s like the ghost of migraines past. And I treat that fuzzy feeling as my body’s warning sign – listen, lady, you’re feeling better now but one wrong move and you’ll be on your ass again, understand? So I end up kind of babying myself the whole day, working really hard to appease the migraine gods. I take a hot shower and make sure I wear my hair down. I eat a real breakfast (not just a cup of those baller-shot-caller pumpkin spice Cheerios, but like an actual meal). I try to lay low at work if I can and avoid headphones. I drink a Coca-Cola because that’s what Mamaw always said would fix a headache, and I go to bed early. Basically I spend a couple of days walking on eggshells around my own body to keep from triggering another migraine – because the thought of having to live through another one so soon after recovering is too scary to take any risks. I’m feeling all better, I’m good to go. If the head of the SID (super important division) at work walks up to me and says he needs all the Bernoulli reports on his desk by noon, I’m ready to rock n’ roll. But if nothing like that comes up, then I lay low and am super careful to avoid unecessary stress. And after a day or so of this hangover feeling, I can move on and forget all about it until about a month later.

One of my friends at work is going through a tough breakup right now asked me the other day if I feel like I’m completely better after mine last year. This little migraine story is what I told him, because that’s the best way to describe where I am. I’m definitely better. I’m happy. I’m appreciating all the great things that are happening in my life and all the possibilities I have in front of me. I’m hanging out with my Maudie dog and keeping my house clean and my laundry all caught up and cooking good food for myself. I’m doing a great job at work and really focused on getting to the next level there. I’ve made some friends. I can sleep through most nights and don’t cry much anymore. I’m open to the next chapter – I know for certain that if I meet someone tomorrow who wants to be in the Rebecca-Business, I’m in a good spot to give that person the best of me without baggage or reservation. I’m good to go. I know it sounds like I’m gassing myself up over being a normal, functioning member of society, but that’s been my focus and it’s working. I took the whole thing really hard and went through a tough time, but like with my migraines, I knew the pain would subside eventually. That’s what I told him in hopes that he’ll take heart and keep moving forward.

But maybe I’m a little bit hungover still – walking around in that fuzzy space with a little bit of worry that I can make a wrong move and end up sliding back into pain. I can feel myself being really cautious. I haven’t been on a first date since July because I went through this series of small let downs that made me nervous. Dating can cause tiny amounts of sadness to start to compound over time. I start making that list of rejections in my head and inventing reasons that things aren’t working out. Maybe I look a certain way, I talk a certain way, I am a certain way that makes people keep me at arm’s length. Maybe my ex was the one person on the planet who was chemically, mentally and emotionally designed to be attracted to the whole package that is me and now that things didn’t work out with him, there’s no one else. Maybe I’ll never feel that way again, maybe I’ll never really move on. See that spiral there? That’s how quickly my hangover can push me right back into the pain zone. So I treat it the same way I treat my migraine hangover. I take a break. I take it easy and lay low. I protect myself a little more than I normally would.

This weekend, I’ve been laying low by deep cleaning my house and listening to country music. Every now and then, I start feeling some kind of way and crank up the “Today’s Country” playlist on Apple music so I can hear all the latest country music. From what I’m hearing, there are a few basic categories of country these days:

• Songs about loving country music. It’s not just a country thing, because “I Love Rock n’ Roll” and “Rock n’ Roll ain’t noise pollution”, but man I don’t know if Kane Brown singing about the Hoochie Coochie is doing it for me.
• Songs about loving country music that are just Jo Dee Messina’s “Heads Carolina, Tails California” but with different words about hitting on a girl at a bar who is trying to have fun with her friends. Cledus T Judd tried to make it big doing something like this in the 90’s and no one took him seriously. But apparently it’s cool now.

• Songs that slap from Jon Pardi and Luke Combs. Honestly, both of them can get it. Luke Combs is the kind of man who will take you out for a steak dinner every Saturday and I think Jon Pardi’s kisses probably taste like Miller Lite. Not that I’ve been thinking about it. Shut up, I don’t want to talk about it anymore.
• Whatever the hell Maddie and Tae are doing.
• Songs about trucks. Wait in the truck (while I kill this guy for you?? wtf??) My heart is like a truck. I need a new truck. Heaven’s in a blue Tacoma. I drive your truck. That ain’t my truck in her drive.
• Songs about whiskey, tequila, beer, moonshine and Muscadine wine. Tequila makes my clothes fall off. I’m not worth the whiskey. Half of me wants a cold beer. Write me a song about a jalapeño margarita and I’ll love you forever (I’m looking at you, Luke and Jon).
• Really disturbing songs about “her daddy”. Ok there’s this song at the top of the charts right now that starts off “Girl, I hope your daddy doesn’t own a gun. If he does, then I’m done from the things that you’re doing to me.” Sir. How old is this girl? What is she doing to you that her daddy doesn’t like? If your girlfriend is still worried about what her daddy thinks about about her sex life OR if her daddy is in any way invested in her sex life (so invested and also informed that a gun may come out?)- she’s too young for you, bro. This song literally made my stomach hurt, I won’t be listening to it again.
• Sad songs that absolutely gut me. I already wrote about my girl Carly’s song. There’s another one that I listened to today that made me cry for a second and have a bad dream during my afternoon nap (heh, I told you I’m laying low). It’s from someone called Shaylen, and it’s called “What If I Don’t”. It goes: “What if I’m not as strong as I think?…What if my heart never unbreaks? People move on, people let go. What if you do? What if I don’t?” Then at the end she just keeps singing “I want to move on” over and over. I love this song and I feel her sentiment. I want to move on. I want it more than anything. Laying low feels like the right thing right now, but I know I can’t do it forever. And the longer it takes me to really move on, the more I worry that it will never happen. But it will. I will.

Side note: This is why country music will always be my favorite genre- as much as I love running to Eminem’s “Shake That”, it doesn’t make me feel anything or reflect on my life at all. Country music does that for me (when it’s not making me worry about sex crimes and alcoholism).

I guess that’s the thing about the migraine hangover. You can’t sit in that spot for long. Life has to go on, work has to get done, and you can’t live your whole life trying to avoid pain when you don’t even know exactly what causes it. I don’t know if my stupid ritual of drinking coke and eating potatoes for breakfast even prevents my migraines from returning, but I do it to feel like I’m doing something to protect myself – and I think that’s pretty smart and healthy. At some point, the opportunity cost that comes with that cautious behavior (missing my pumpkin flavored Cheerios, for example) becomes too high to continue. The fuzzy hangover feeling fades into the background of all of the other things life throws at me, and life moves on. Which is great because I want to move on. I want to move on. I want to move on. I wanna move onnnnnnnnnn…