Coping, Triggers

Hot

I have a couple strict rules for myself: 1) Don’t go to Whole Foods, Target or Trader Joe’s after 10 a.m. on Fridays. 2) Don’t run errands if the temperature is higher than 85 degrees. Not only did I break both rules on Friday, when the high was 95 degrees, I went to Whole Foods, Target and Trader Joe’s.

I was hot, my head hurt and I was grumpy. By the time I got home, I was really, really hot; really, really annoyed; and had a really, really bad headache that was probably triggered by the heat. So what did I do? I cleaned the house and worked on my computer (in the hottest room in the house). Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Once I descended into the blissful cool of the basement, I realized just how counterproductive it was to push myself. (OK, I’ve realized this a thousand times already, but it’s a revelation every time.) I had made myself feel worse than when I started and I had no energy for the rest of the day. The sofa in our musty unfinished basement became my friend and I watched baseball on my laptop. All the while stressed because I had to pack to go to my sister’s house the next day.

There’s really no point in continuing the story. I got hot and overdid it on Friday and again on Saturday. I would have done the same on Sunday, but Hart and I hung out in my sister’s air conditioned house while she and her family were at a pool party.

My sister apologized repeatedly for not entertaining us. We were actually perfectly happy — we got to lie around and didn’t think about the housework we weren’t doing because we were three hours from home. And it reminded me again of the lesson I should have learned by now. Don’t push it. It always backfires. Always.

1 thought on “Hot”

  1. that happens me too but im in ireland and the temp is lower but my tollerance to heat got so bad my mom has to turn the house heating down to 10 degrees and i sleep with no covers

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