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Jul 5, 2018

Rainy Season Blues

    When I moved to Japan in my early twenties, rainy season was a real surprise for me. For 23 years, I knew summers that lasted around 6 months and the rest of the seasons lopped into the rest of the year, in whatever interval the weather saw fit, occasionally with as many as 4 seasons in one day. Just having regimented three-month long weather cycles was weird enough for me, but to then have half of summer--the one season I truly understand--traded for perpetual humidity with frequent rain caused nothing but grief. That said, I enjoyed watching the thunderstorms well enough, but the shortening of my summer and the frequency of the rain/flooding/typhoons bothered me.
Rainy Season Blues photo
Rain, rain. Go away. Stop hurting me. You suck. No it doesn't rhyme. Blame the migraine.
    
    Ten years later, I found myself looking forward to this season for the respite from the heat. I wouldn't be having to turn on the air conditioner for a while, I told myself. It would be nice and cool from the rain. No sweat-drenched walks across town for me yet, I believed, but even that has failed to be true. In the last week, I have sweated myself weak from walking across town to teach and had to walk home in a torrential downpour to boot. It has become the worst of both seasons and worst of all, the changes in air pressure has combined with the fading estrogen and cartilage of my thirties to form a fantastic hellscape of migraines and joint pain.
    
    I hate rainy season now, because it hurts me. If I swapped the migraines for depression, I would swear this was winter. And that begs the question: which is worse? Between feeling like an ice pick is being driven through your eye socket or not caring if one was, I don't know which would win my preference, but I know who loses, and that's me.

JTsu

JTsu

A working mom/writer/teacher explores her surroundings in Miyagi-ken and Tohoku, enjoying the fun, quirky, and family friendly options the area has to offer.


4 Comments

  • helloalissa

    on Jul 5

    The crazy air pressure from typhoon 7 on Tuesday made me a henzutsu mess too. Maybe it's headed your way now. If you have some of those ice packs handy, it sometimes helps to chill out with one on the back of your head. Or on your joints. (Or just tape them all over your body.)

  • genkidesu

    on Jul 5

    As a migraine sufferer and long-winter battler, I hear you on both fronts. I'm already excited for fall, but I feel like at a certain point I get anxious that the snow is just around the corner, and it feels so isolating for months...

  • JTsu

    on Jul 6

    @helloalissa That is a good idea. I will stock up on tape for this.

  • JTsu

    on Jul 6

    @genkidesu I know! Spring and fall are literally the only good seasons, and both are too short for my liking. These more dramatic months are harder to manage, but we will get through them.