Fortysomething

From men to mid life crises, from Botox to Brazilians, from infertility to infidelity, every week Jacqui Leigh gives her personal take on being a fortysomething woman

Headaches and memories

By Jacqui Leigh on 12 Jan 2012 No comments

It’s the night before I go back to work. Dan’s gone to Sweden to spend a few days with his family and bring his mother home. The fun is over.

I sleep badly, going over the same stupid work-related crap in my head, unable to switch off until I fall into the worst kind of tense, tooth grinding sleep and wake up with a thumping headache.

I realise how much easier it is these days to fall asleep curled up against another warm human being. Especially when that being is Daniel. This is new for me. When I slept with my ex, I would lie in bed almost whimpering, praying for him to stop snoring just long enough to let me sleep. Every time there was a silence I’d tense, wondering whether he’d finally stopped, when the racket would suddenly start up all over again. Eventually I’d try to creep out of bed to sleep downstairs - at which point he’d wake up like an ogre in a fairy tale, snatch the duvet and stomp downstairs.

Happy memories, eh? Anyway my headaches are legendary (to me anyway), they last three days regardless of the cocktail of Migraleve and Nurofen Plus I stuff down my gob. I think I’ve become immune to both. Sometimes it’s a tight band of pain across my forehead, sometimes the band of pain is joined by my old friend, Neck Tension. And sometimes it feels exactly like someone has jabbed a screwdriver (or possibly an axe) into my skull just above my right eye.

Not severe enough to qualify as a migraine, no fancy auras or flashing lights, my headaches are just nasty enough to ruin three days of my life while I soldier on, going to work, emptying the dishwasher, feeling the pain ebb and flow, easing up and then coming back with a vengeance, slowly unravelling itself like a knotted cable inside my brain...

Once, just once, I took some very strong painkillers, prescribed by a dentist in Italy for my ex’s toothache, which carried me off into the darkness like a warm embrace and I slept for several days.

I think that might have been morphine.

At the weekend, missing Dan badly, I head off with Monica for a daytrip to see friends who have moved to the city where I went to university, just over a quarter of a century ago.

I’ve only been back once since then, many years back, so I take her on a lightning tour. Much has changed, mainly the shops which are new and fancier - Space NK has replaced WH Smiths, there are Starbucks and Costas instead of the greasy spoons, we drive past a massive, fancy new shopping mall and the harbour has turned from a barren, gull-poo covered dump into a lively recreational hub full of restaurants and piazzas.

But lots is still the same and as I drive around, at every turn I have flashbacks to my chaotic twentysomething self.

My story at university was boys - and booze to a certain extent - but mainly boys and hardly any studying. Fresh out of an all girls school I had never had much opportunity to meet the opposite sex and I had a whole lot of catching up to do.

Which means the city is strewn with memories of all the boys I slept with. That’s pretty much the sum total of my memories, except one occasion when I drove, completely off my head on vodka, to the house of some boy who had dumped me and - despite weaving all over the road at 5 am - miraculously managed not to get stopped by the police.

On one street corner I remember the night a friend and I bumped into two first years boys. That place, that moment, was the only time I really fell in love instantly - the memory of that exact moment hardwired into my brain for all time - me and Bob walking along, both feeling it. Amazing.

We went out for a while and in the end it was a disaster, he was always off his face on weed, developed paranoid schizophrenia and had to leave.

Monica is bored with sightseeing. And there are some things you really can’t share with your children. So we head off to the huge shopping mall to burn some cash and I resolve to make sure she knows herself and something about the world before she gets to university.