It's a brain thing. Here come the
holidays, there go my eyes, and it's time to pull the shades again. I do most
of my work in the dark.
I watch people all around me get through
Seasonal Affective Disorder in winter time. I am the opposite. I welcome the
dark. I wish I could live on a planet in continual full eclipse, I would be
outside all the time. I love dark rainy days because I actually feel
better.
It starts in the autumn. Between
allergies from the autumn leaves melting my eyeballs in a gooey ooze (I drink
benadryl by the quart in the autumn) and more and more sunlight flickering
through the baring trees while I drive (Scott makes fun of my huge sunglasses,
and my windows are tinted), the nerves in my face spike around till I get a pain
level going that makes the 1-10 scale look like a silly comic strip. The sharp
stabs ramming through my left eye into my brain and back down my nose into the
roof of my mouth and teeth this last month were amusing, and despite my will of
steel that I've built up over the years, I came pretty close to throwing up.
Puking would only finish killing me, so I just grit my teeth and think about
slamming my head against a few walls, or driving a wire coat hangar into my
spine for some crude home grown acupuncture. Don't worry, I'm not a self
harmer. Sux enough as it is, no sense making it worse. But the visuals do seem
to help a little, maybe they force my brain to squeeze out a few endorphins or
something.
We had the most spectacular autumn season
that I've seen in nearly 30 years around here, and it's been so dry and sunny
that most people are walking around singing about the holidays. I walk out of
Walmart blinded and stumble through the parking lot hoping I don't run my cart
into someone's car while I peek my eyes open every few seconds just long enough
to keep my bearings. Every morning I'm curled up in a ball planning my day by
day strategy. Small chunks. Five minutes doing this, a couple minutes doing
that, keep moving around, lay down a few minutes, get up and move some more,
don't sit too long, don't read too long, don't stand too long in one place. I
am a professional with migraines. Most people never know I have them. I got
really lucky last summer, they eased up after a particularly nasty spring, and
all I can say is watch me fly. If I can do everything I'm doing, get
everything done that I'm getting done with migraines in my face, imagine what I
could do without them.
So here they come again. This week has
been like getting back together with an old friend. All the old familiar habits
are coming back. Darken up my life, work in tiny time increments, keep moving.
At all costs, keep moving...
Nerve damage is an interesting lifestyle.
My eyes themselves are very healthy. My brain shows no obvious anomalies. It's
the cranial nerves running out of the back of my skull and across my face that
are the problem. Since 2004 I've been dealing with the crazy numbness,
maddening itching, weird loss and come backs of smell and taste, phantom
sensations that make my face feel wildly asymmetrical, and a full range of
prickling, stabbing, and burning pains. I can blink my eyes just fine, my mouth
works like it's supposed to, my hearing is still pretty good, but between
sometimes being able to feel every curve in my skull (feeling your eyes sockets
from the inside is a hoot) and sometimes not being able to feel my face at all
(a blessed relief from the maddening itch, which is continual otherwise), I deal
with some really nasty migraines that defy description. I don't fit textbook
headaches at all.
I used to love Christmas lights. I used
to love driving the main strip in Branson at night. I used to love being out in
the evenings doing things around town. But now I just want the dark. If I want
to see any of that fun pretty stuff, I look at it online. When I work on my blogs,
I keep most of my pages really dark and the print brightly colored so I don't
have to work my eyes harder on the monochromatic black/white.
And metaphorically, I like it dark. I
like thinking about the human condition, and how people survive against hopeless
odds in terrible situations. I like how humans can make the decision to plunge
ahead into the unknown abyss and outwit crushing defeat. I like the way people
can develop the kindest souls by living through the darkest nights, alone,
unaided, forgotten. I think true light in this universe is really
us.
