Early morning, at 5 a.m., I get up. Because I had a cold, I had kept a towel under the pillow, it’s missing. Now, search…search…search. No trace of the towel! When something like this happens, I know the day is going to be one of those days I’m going to encounter frustration every hour.
After a migraine headache, which used to visit me quite often, left me in my late-forties, this is a regular affair. Almost one day in a fortnight I have to keep myself ready to get frustrated throughout the day. Now I am used to it and once I get a signal, like the missing towel, I keep myself ready for any eventuality during the course of the day. Let us watch how the day progresses.
My towel had just slipped down through the gap between the edge of the cot and the wall. I recover it, but not before enjoying a muscle pull in my left-hand upper arm (I am a left-hander). I’m not able to squeeze out anything from the empty pain balm tube I found with great difficulty.
I finish my morning chores and comply with the instructions given by my home-maker before she left for the morning walk. Nothing untoward happened in the kitchen, except that I had to spend a precious ten minutes to locate the particular knife I am comfortable with for cutting vegetables. There are half a dozen other knives, but they won’t do if I am to cut onions.
Back in the drawing room, and I open my emails. One from an editor attracts my attention. As I had not submitted anything to her publication during the last one year, I was surprised. With some curiosity and more expectation, I open the particular mail. God! It starts with just ‘Mr. Warrier!’.
The strongly worded and aggressive mail is targeting a person who had posted some online comments criticising her views on some banking issue. She took another person’s online comments as mine and keyed in this message! In reality, for the first time in more than a year, I had appreciated her views in my online comments about the same article she had written in her publication. I took a deep breath and responded, explaining the facts. I again remind myself that I have to be very careful today when responding to people and situations. I am late for my morning walk. I don’t get my home-maker’s brand of milk packets and had to make do with some other brand because I went late.
Later in the day, I go all the way to my hairdresser’s shop. I had forgotten that it was Tuesday, which is a holiday for barber shops in the locality. I come back home.
It’s noon. As the cold had aggravated, I thought I will consult my doctor who has a clinic nearby. A large sheet of paper pasted on the shutters of the clinic welcomes me: “The clinic will remain closed till January 21.” Today is January 16. I collect some OTC (over-the-counter) medicines for cold and cough from a chemist and return home.
My afternoon adventures, I leave for your imagination.
Night I go to bed with the comfortable thought that tomorrow is going to be a much better day. This is one of life’s lessons I learned from my type of migraine headache. Migraine headache was my regular visitor, once in ten days or thrice in a month, from my school days. If I’m able to sleep well late in the night of the day of its arrival, it will leave stealthily when I sleep and the next day there will be no symptom left of the previous day’s ordeal.
Always, next day is a brighter, better day.
mgwarrier@gmail.com
