The Broad Running Broad

Full disclosure: in spite of all the “yous,” today’s post really is more about me and my marbles. As is a lot of the stuff I post on here.

So back on Monday I uploaded my hello-to-December post and was feeling pretty good. I even bundled up and went on a run that evening, since the neighbors have their lights up and they look beautiful. It was cold, but I was able to relax into a happy four miles and the slow run didn’t feel like it took too long.

Then Tuesday morning came.

I don’t know if this is an age thing, but whenever the temperature drops, my joints start hurting and I get migraines. I had the mother of all migraines on Tuesday morning that didn’t respond to generic Excedrin, and it decided to stay with me until Friday afternoon.

I even had my heat jacked up to 71 and was wearing my thickest beanie to try and warm up the back of my head, which felt like it was struck by an icicle. All I needed was my puffer coat over my work from home uniform (sweats and robe) and I would have looked like one of the South Park kids.

We had snow come in overnight Tuesday, which was beautiful to look at until I remembered I needed to go into the office on Wednesday. The car was covered by an avalanche, so I had to try to get that un-buried Wednesday morning. To make things worse, the main road I use to get to work is closed down until spring for construction. In dry conditions this isn’t a big deal – I can hop on the adjacent back road and get to work with no problem.

All I’m going to say about my commute and the traction control struggles is that right now, I would love nothing more than to be in Arizona.

In between the weather, the migraine, some stresses I’ve been dealing with offline and end-of-year madness finally catching up to me, my body and mind finally gave out Friday morning and I took a sick day.

I didn’t want to take a sick day, at all.

Although I gotta admit, taking the day to lay in bed, not look at any screens and hibernate with Marina did help. Mom mentioned that she could hear it in my voice when she called to check on me yesterday afternoon that I sounded centered again.

During that conversation I told Mom that I realized I have two factory settings: either high-energy, on-top-of-the-world and able to channel that into getting everything I want to done, or completely deflated and unable to function. Frankly, if I’ve ever had a calm middle ground in my life, I have no recollection of it.

“I think I’m the Red Guy from Cow and Chicken,” I told Mom. Which she laughed at.

For those of you who didn’t watch Cartoon Network in the ’90s, Red had two modes: calm indoor voice or yelling. He also didn’t like to wear pants and walked on his butt cheeks, which may or may not have been something the leftover 90s kid in your life has tried to do at least once.

I’m not admitting to or denying anything about the butt walk thing.

But all the joking and pop culture references aside, the way I’ve been going through this week and really a lot of my life – since December is rarely a one-off thing but more than likely an amplification of what’s been going on the other 11 months – is finally catching up to me. The ability I had to bounce back from the lows isn’t there anymore and carrying on like it is does me no favors.

Which brings me to this morning. I slept in until 7 and have spent the last two hours working on a cup of coffee, since I don’t have anywhere I need to be until 2:30. I’ve still got some chores to do, but I can move at the speed of smell to get them done. I might even do some baking before heading out.

There’s no need to finish out 2025 like a jack rabbit.

So with all that being said, Reader-friends: take care of yourselves. They’re your holidays too and you’ve got just as much right to slow down, decide some tasks can wait a few more weeks (since we all know if you’re reading this you’re likely procrastinating elsewhere), and say no way to another stop/errand/event in an already-packed schedule.

And book the facial. That’s my 2:30 appointment today. I may be a human stress ball, but at least my skin can look fabulous. Which incidentally is something Red would say.

Oh dear.

Yours in writing and life,

Allison