Message received.

The other day I had a migraine.  I have had them before.  However, before Friday, I did not realize that I had.  I have been incapacitated for a day or two here and there by, yes, a headache, but also a range of other symptoms, that all this time, have been preventing me from seeing them for what they were, migraines.  As I slowly climbed out of the hole of weakness and a certain flatness that the migraine had dug for me, I finally started to connect dots that have likely been sitting there for years.

The next day as I stood in the hot shower,  and let the steaming water run down over my body, the realization that this is what had just happened and had happened many times before, made me feel slightly stupid. Relieved, but stupid.

Everyday I allow myself to be inundated by information. On a daily basis, I read pr-ified versions of other people's lives and reviews and memes and essays and news stories and progress reports and information letters and school newsletters and flyers and bills that are both overwhelming and impossible to decipher and relative strangers' updates on my facebook feed and complete strangers' updates on my twitter feed and yet, I did not, could not, read the signs my own body has been persistently trying to tell me.  I have been having them for years, now that I think about it.

The migraines forcing me to lie still for hours on end, grinding my other activities to a halt every few months, had not been sufficient information, for some reason.  There was no twitter alert. No press release. No voice mail or text message.  I simply did not get the message.

I get migraines. Now, I finally know. What else?