Last weekend, my partner and I took a whirlwind trip “home” to the Twin Cities. His dad had gotten tickets to see Paul Simon on his farewell tour. Plane tickets from Chicago were unusually expensive, so we rented a car and drove up, leaving very early Friday morning.

The concert was incredible. I will freely admit that I am not super well-versed in Paul Simon’s music, but I knew enough to not be completely lost, and watching the show as a songwriter gave me a real appreciation for the level of craft he brings to his music. Also, anyone who can perform on stage for that long with that much energy at 76 is pretty incredible in my book.

We tried really hard not to overbook ourselves on this trip (something we often fail at), so Saturday was fairly laid-back. I got coffee in the morning with a professor I knew from bible college. We’ve been trying to get coffee together every time I’ve been in Minnesota for the past eight or nine months, and I’m so glad it finally worked out. That afternoon, my partner and I got lunch with one of our favorite people. It wasn’t a super long visit, but it was great to see them and catch up a bit. In the evening, my partner’s Grandma came over to his parents’ house to join us for dinner, which was also very nice.

Sunday morning, we got an early breakfast with my best friend (another of our very favorite people), which was delightful, as we don’t get to see each other nearly often enough. And then we made our way back to Chicago, which took a couple of hours longer than the trip out, thanks to detours and lane closures between Milwaukee and Chicago.

By the time we got home, we were pretty exhausted. Unfortunately, neither of us could take Monday off, so we dive headfirst into the week and hoped we’d make it.

And for the most part, we’ve managed. Unfortunately, yesterday (Wednesday) it sort of all caught up with me – the cottonwood trees were shedding everywhere (it looked like a snow storm on parts of my commute), which made my sinuses cranky, and the increased heat and humidity combined with already being exhausted all conspired together, and by the time I got home from work, everything hurt. My joints ached. Putting pressure anywhere on my arms or legs hurt like a bruise. I had a headache. My eyes ached when I tried focusing too hard on anything. I was pretty miserable. I ended up taking a Benadryl and heading to bed around 8:30.

I’m writing this Thursday morning on my way to work. I feel better than I did last night, although I definitely wished this morning that I’d gone with my instinct to bring my work computer home with me yesterday so I could work from home today. I’m hoping the extra sleep last night will have been restorative enough that I’ll make it to the end of the week.

I am annoyed that my body can’t handle a low-key weekend road trip without at least one extra day to recover, but I’m not really surprised. I’ve made an appointment with my doctor to talk through what options I might have to manage this better (something I started looking into before I got sidetracked with top surgery prep). So we’ll see how that goes. Meanwhile, I’m trying to be present in the aches and pains, and be grateful for what my body can do.