Nine moments her body knew before she did.
The somatic pack. Living in herself. The 4pm wave. The clenched jaw. The shoulder that won't untangle. The held breath in meetings. The hair in the shower. Pre-burnout, pre-anxiety — the body knowing before the mind. Universal in a way few packs are, because everyone has a body, and most bodies are tired.
More strands than usual on my hand.
I held them under the water and didn't go anywhere, me or them. Did the thing where I start to count, then stopped. Don't actually want to know. Rinsed them off. Went on with the shower. I am, the internet tells me, possibly stressed. The internet is being kind. I'll check again next week. I'll probably stop checking.
The 4pm wave is the worst.
Today it hit at 4:03. Answering an email. I had to stop and look at the wall for a minute. Not coffee-fixable. Not nap-fixable. I've tried. A small, daily acquaintance with how tired I actually am—the kind the morning espresso politely covers up. I get through it. I always get through it. I don't, exactly, recommend it.
I caught my shoulders at my ears.
Again. I never notice them rising. I only notice them when I notice them, which is to say, right now. I lower them. Two minutes later, I check. At my ears again. We do this all day. We have been doing it for weeks. My shoulders, it turns out, have opinions about my job. They keep showing me.
Caught myself holding my breath in a meeting.
I don't know when I stopped. Started again. I felt the inhale specifically—the first one taken on purpose all day. I think I do this a lot. I think I have always done this. The meeting continued. Someone said something about Q3. I nodded. I was breathing again. Nobody noticed. I noticed.
Woke up with my jaw sore.
The internet says it's stress grinding. The dentist agrees. I bought the mouthguard. I forget to wear it. Clenching a fist in my sleep for seven hours, apparently. It will be sore tomorrow. I am, in some technical sense, fighting something. Something is fighting back.
The knot in my shoulder has been there nine weeks.
Not from sleeping wrong. Not from a workout — I haven't been to a workout in months. It arrived around the same time as the Friday emails. I press on it; it doesn't move. I've made it a roommate. I've started telling people about it — "the shoulder is being a thing" — like it's something that happened to me, not something I'm holding.
The headache comes at 6pm.
Every day. The same headache. A kind of structural exhaustion that has chosen 6pm as its appointment slot. Ibuprofen. Water. Close my eyes. Gone by 8, most days. Some days it isn't. The headache is, in its way, polite. It only arrives once it knows I'm done. Small courtesy. I appreciate it.
My heart skipped on the L train.
Quick. I felt it go. I put my hand on my chest, the way people do in movies. Back to normal in three seconds. I looked at the man across from me. On his phone. He didn't notice. Nobody on the train noticed. I noticed. The body has been trying to get my attention through softer means for months; today it tried louder.
Woke up this morning, back didn't hurt.
I noticed because the not-hurting was strange. For a full minute I lay there, assessing. Shoulders? Quiet. Jaw? Quiet. Headache forecast? Clear. For ninety seconds, the body of a person simply rested. I got out of bed carefully, the way I carry something good. By 11am, it had all returned. A small message from a country I used to live in. I'm trying to remember how to visit.