“Remoted” – Workday 115 / Day 164 (Thursday)

This morning felt different. I woke up with a mild headache, and the feeling of being near tears, both of which lasted most of the morning. There was no apparent reason. Now I understand when Mummu used to say she felt “weepy.” It was exactly that. 

Cloudy cloud cover.

It took a while, because my energy was focused on the headache and trying to not cry, but eventually the realization struck that my head was strangely, deliciously quiet. The shrill tinnitus soundtrack that has looped on overdrive in my cranium for the past two weeks was missing. The mild throb of the headache seemed to have crowded it out. I have never been so grateful for the miracle of a headache.

The tinnitus is as unpredictable as the headaches, though more frequent. According to whiny posts that show up in my Facebook memories, the curse of internal cranial noise has been visiting me for many years. There’s no discernible pattern or cause, although if I tracked it daily, maybe one or the other would emerge. Sometimes, when it’s especially annoying, I jot a note in my daily planner, but it’s not scientific or regular. Maybe it’s time to start a daily tinnitus/headache inventory and notation. I can probably squeeze it in between the morning language app Finnish lessons and Candy Crush or the evening social media time suck and Candy Crush.

In other news, it was cloudy, a very un-August like 67 degrees outside, 71 degrees inside, and I was cold. This meant rummaging for an extra sweater layer for over the long sleeve shirt, long pants, and socks. There was even hot cocoa. Already. But it didn’t make me too sad, because my head was noise free for the first time in about two weeks. 

Then the chilly, cloudy day became a rainy day. Even that wasn’t so bad, because when the rain arrived, the headache went away. This truly is a day of minor personal miracles. It's purely unscientific at this point, but if it turns out that gray, cloudy, rainy weather means being headache and tinnitus free, I may need to consider relocating. Portland? Seattle? Reykjavik? Edinburgh?