Weekend Log: How to read the signs

Hi Midlifers,

It started a few weeks ago on a Thursday, the tiny tremor that quickly shook the outer corner of my right eye. I was walking the dog under a canopy of sycamore trees in our new neighborhood that’s always our respite from the heat these days, when I felt the slight twitch and thought, “That’s weird.”

Historically, the eye twitching has accompanied periods of intense stress—like during my divorce or the various moves I’ve made over the last 10 years. It’s like my eye socket is a pressure valve my body uses to slowly release the build up inside. Often, without me knowing there’s even a build up in the first place.

Which was why when I first felt the twitch, I though it was weird. Sure, there was a lot of swirl happening at work and I just had a new member join my team, but that’s just all normal stuff, right? What did my body know that I didn’t know?

Lately, in my dotage, I’ve noticed that the eye twitching can be a precursor to other things my body likes to do when life gets sorta lifey. It’s the firing shot for my central nervous system to indicate there’s trouble within followed by other cool stuff like heartburn, styes and a knot that travels around the left side of my neck.

If you’ve spent any time here with me and reading the pages from my midlife diary, then you know that there was an especially dramatic sequence of events last fall that culminated with me spending the night in the hospital when I thought I was having a heart attack. Like, I legit had my sister drive me to the emergency room that kicked off a 24-hour medical odyssey.

Then there was the fall down my front steps a few weeks after that sent me back to the ER and home with four staples in the top of my head. Just ask my friends Kelly and Judy, who held my hand during the ordeal, about that one.

Pretty much that was me, bringing oldest-daughter-with-no-boundaries energy to my job — with all the people pleasing, perfectionism and willingness to let work consume my life — that I had previously brought to romantic relationships. But in this scenario, my job was that bad boyfriend and I was still doing the same old things to make him love me.