pink knitting

I have noticed that I have experienced a LOT more anxiety in general since having children. It just comes with the territory, I guess. I worry when things go wrong, and I worry when things are okay because I am afraid things will go wrong at any moment. My rational self realizes that this a waste of energy and counter-productive, but it happens anyway. Sometimes I am good at talking myself out of it and sometimes not.

I want to be up front here and say that I do not have a diagnosable disorder. I do not experience panic attacks and I do not have depression. I am extraordinarily fortunate in this regard and I am aware enough to empathize with people who require treatment without pretending that my experience is the same. It's not the same. I know that.

Still, it's been a rough week. New semester means new students, new music, new scheduling issues, and just the anticipation of all that has me feeling an unusual amount of stress. Friday's inauguration has filled me with impending doom (and the sudden urge to knit pink hats for the whole family to wear to the women's march in our city this Saturday). Plus the weather sucks big time with rain and ice and all manner of yuck; I'd rather have a snowstorm, personally.

All of this culminated in a monster headache this afternoon that was verging on a migraine. (I've had one migraine in my life and it was not an experience I care to repeat. Dreadful, that.) I had some meetings at my workplace, the first in a noisy room, and the second in a room with florescent lights so bright I could hardly stand it. I knit most of a hat in that two-hour workshop, and that was the only thing that kept me from passing out on the floor.

Or maybe it was the searing pink that gave me that headache? Who knows!