Five Hours

If I don’t open my eyes, it’s not real.

This is a game that Sarah plays, and loses, quite often. Magical thinking, hoping that it’s not another headache during the witching hour. Eyes still closed, she slowly sits up. The pain stabs her forehead as she peeps through her eyelids at her phone. It’s 2 in the morning. Sarah’s entire body revolts: Pounding head, stiff neck, and brain shrieking that it’s not time to get up.

Headaches plagued Sarah since her teenage years. There is no rhyme or reason to them. They could occur after eating lunch on a Monday or, like now, 2 in the morning on a Thursday. She’s been to neurologists. She’s tried every new migraine medicine as soon as it hits the market. Nothing works. If she can just lessen the nauseating vertigo that accompanies the headache, things might improve.

Fifteen minutes later, Sarah is standing in her kitchen brewing coffee. Caffeine eases the pain. She stared, with the refrigerator open, for what seemed like an eternity trying to decide if she should drink a Coke or coffee. Which is the more appropriate drink at 2 in the morning? Coffee.

Think.

Even willing herself to think was painful. Sarah sips the piping hot coffee slowly and a plan emerges from the fog.

It’s a little after 2. Ok. I still have plenty of time to take my medicine and get back to sleep. As long as my medicine kicks in quickly. Why wouldn’t it? It’s going to be fine.

Taking the medicine only solves half the problem. The other half is elusive sleep. If you can’t sleep, the trick is to lay down, close your eyes, and tell yourself that you don’t have to sleep. You’re just resting your eyes.

Just like that, Sarah is awake again. An hour has passed and the headache persists but at a dull throb rather than a riotous roar.

This is going to be a bad day.

Three hours of sleep will do that. Thoughts float in and out of her pain riddled head.

I could use a sick day. I have so many. Just go in. Or call in sick.

Sarah has more than enough sick days. And vacation days. Sarah graduated college at the height of the great recession. With no other option, and the job market plummeting, she went to graduate school. After graduate school, the economy had started a very slow upward trend. Search after search turned up nothing for a job until she stumbled upon a random advertisement on her university’s employment board. “Assistant at Top 5 Accounting Firm Needed.” Sarah applied and the rest is history. Call it loyalty or lack of ambition, but either way, she’s been at the firm for 15 years.

Another cup of coffee, as hot as she can tolerate, playing with the idea of going to work or not. She mulls over a pros and cons list forming in her mind.

Oh! I’m supposed to train Amanda today.

Amanda is a new hire and Sarah is responsible for her on-boarding. She enjoys the process and it’s not an everyday occurrence. She doesn’t mind at all. When Sarah started, Liz on-boarded her. A positive experience that left Sarah wanting to pay it forward. Amanda seems perfectly nice. Even more importantly, she’s excited for the job. Truly excited. Sarah couldn’t remember the last time her job stirred excitement in her.

How useful would I really be with this headache and lack of sleep?

The bigger issue is the lack of sleep. She’s done it before. This isn’t the first, and won’t be the last, time that she’s been awoken with a screeching headache. She takes the last sip of coffee and decides to shower. That’s one decision she can execute.

I have to shower either way.

Her neighbors must think she’s crazy for taking a shower at four in the morning. Sarah loves her apartment but the walls are a bit thin. She’s lived at the apartment almost as long as she’s been at her job. Sarah was not someone who relished change. Change is similar to adventure, it’s always there, but you have to seek it.

Sometimes a shower will help the headache move on, today the shower seemed to invite it to stay longer. This created an insurmountable level of frustration, knowing that her own body has betrayed her and there is very little that she can do. She tries to relax under the hot water. It’s not working. Jumping out, she reaches for more medicine.

I have to take more medicine either way.

Not wanting to poke the bear that was the headache, she sits in the pitch black living room and focuses her energy on the television. She waits for the medicine to work.

Sarah aimlessly surfs the channels until landing on a travel documentary about the history of Switzerland. She watches as the host of the show frolics from Geneva to Zurich and on to Bern. She decides to put Switzerland on her list of places to go.

I rarely take off. I deserve a day.

Sarah certainly deserves a day off. She shows up to work rain or shine. She is her own worst enemy: She won’t allow herself to take a day. The firm would run whether she is there or not, although that was something that Sarah doesn’t like to admit.

As the travel show goes from Switzerland to Germany, Sarah’s mind drifts to travel. She’s never been enthralled by travel but she wouldn’t mind a change of pace.

Maybe I should move. Pack up and go to a new city. Make new friends, get new hobbies and become a better version of myself.

The accounting firm where Sarah toils her life away is a large, international firm. She could easily transfer to another office. Sarah occasionally daydreams about it. Maybe she decides that Nashville isn’t the place for her anymore. Johannesburg might suit her better. Or maybe Boise. It could easily be accomplished. But Sarah doesn’t have the patience or the effort. It sounds exhausting.

The fatigue begins to set in as the show turns from Germany to Italy.

The deadline!

The thought of the looming deadline jolts Sarah awake. Early next week, she has a presentation. She’s barely started working on it.

I really should go in. Or at least I could log in from home. I need to have the rough draft complete before the weekend, at the latest.

Gingerly, she touches her head. It seems a bit better than the hour before, but it’s still angry. Sarah glances at the clock.

I have to get dressed either way.

After another cup of coffee, Sarah stands in front of her closet.

God, my clothes are boring.

Boring might be a bit harsh. Sarah’s clothes are conservative erring on the side of stylish but just barely. Black, black, black, grey, black, white, white, grey. There’s no color in her closet. Not even the accessories. Selecting her outfit, she begins to dress. The dizziness from the headache ebbs and flows.

Sarah makes her way into the kitchen and, instead of coffee, grabs a bottle of water. Quickly assembling her oatmeal, she pops it into the microwave and waits.

I have to eat breakfast either way.

After every headache, she scolds herself for not being proactive about eating. Eating seems to help settle the medicine. Sarah knows this, but it never seems to occur to her at the start. The medicine is working and the headache is dwindling into a memory. Checking her email, Sarah sees that she has 10 emails patiently queued.

Already!? It’s not even 7 a.m.

Glancing through the emails, none are urgent. Which then presents Sarah with a much more urgent issue: To go into work or not.

Don’t panic. The headache is gone. Now it’s just exhaustion. You can deal with exhaustion.

Finishing her oatmeal, she ponders her next move. There’s no harm in going to work. If she gets there and decides that she doesn’t feel well enough to stay, she can always go home. Then again, it might be more responsible to recognize that she’s not going to be useful at work and go ahead and call in.

Sarah decides to pack her lunch.

I have to eat lunch either way.