Brain Rest
aka an overachiever is forced to take a break
I got my 2nd head injury in just as many months, and my aftercare instructions were to “rest your brain,” which the doctor described as nothing stimulating— no writing, no watching TV, nothing where I have to think too hard.
As someone who overthinks for fun, and is on a self-imposed writing deadline, this has proven to be quite the challenge. But, I also know my body is trying to tell me something, and I’m trying my best to listen.
We all know this year has been an exhausting one. Everyone I talk to, whether they were involved in the strikes or not, is burnt the f out. Add on the extra stress of the holidays, and it makes for a perfect recipe of wanting to be in hibernation mode. I feel like this has been the case for me since Thanksgiving.
Last week my son and I were sick. Like, he was home for 3 days and had to go to Urgent Care sick, and I was sick in the sense I was tired from taking care of a moody 5-year-old on my own and caught some of his cold. This week he went back to school, and I was supposed to go back to working on my feature, breaking a new pilot, searching for jobs that don’t seem to exist right now, running the fund, and doing the million other things that usually make up my week.
I even woke up at sunrise on Tuesday, and wrote in my journal about how peaceful it was and how I need to do this more often. And then my son and I were playing, and accidentally fell out of bed like the nursery rhyme warns us all about. This time, it was mama who hit her head (and not the monkeys) and had to go to the doctor. A goose egg had already started to form on my forehead, which was thankfully obscured by my bangs, but a headache and neck stiffness set in.
As soon as the doctor touched my neck, he sensed it was whiplash. A couple of neck scans quickly confirmed that. I told him about my history of migraines, and how just last month a shower curtain fell on my head and I felt horrible for a couple of days. “I think we need to do a CT scan and just confirm nothing else is going on.” Thankfully, my insurance covered it this time and I got my scan and was sent home to “rest my brain.” Sometimes getting hit in the head can be a blessing in disguise, I guess. The CT showed there’s nothing seriously wrong and that obviously brings huge relief.
Meanwhile, I’m resting my brain and limiting my activities. Instead of trying to jam 10 activities into my day, I’m limiting it. I didn’t work on my screenplay, and I tried to limit doing math for the fund… except we hit 250k this week, which is a very big milestone! I also watched both seasons of “Our Flag Means Death” and what a delight that show is!
Maybe this is how I’m meant to spend the rest of the year… in complete self care and awareness. Besides, we could all use a little brain rest right now.