I’ve been sick. I would have mentioned it here before, except I seemed to be a bit in denial and tried to work (and travel) right through it, which only made it worse.

Today, for the first time in ten days, my head doesn’t feel like a lead balloon sitting on top of a body that was being controlled by alien forces. Ah, how much I’m appreciating my health today. You don’t realize how good you have it until you’re sitting sick in bed wondering how hard it could be to get out and being completely unable to do so.

I’ve mentioned before how sick I get when I travel, but over the last couple of years, it just seems to be getting progressively worse. I start panicking and getting nausea two days in advance of any travel, and while I know it’s in my head, it leads to a massive build up, which means I get pretty sick when I do leave the house.

I’m someone who loves to visit new places, so this fear of getting in a car or on a plane is something I’d like to get over quickly. But I have no idea what I’m dealing with here. Anyone else know what this is or why I become a whimpering hyperventilating idiot each time I’m asked to board a plane? Thought I’d throw it out there for the more experienced among us.

In more positive news, our wedding invitations have arrived! Not long to go now (a month or so), and I have to say, while the wedding is all fine and dandy, we’re both really looking forward to the marriage. The wedding, the way we see it, is just a necessity to get us there, but we’re not that fussed about it. It’s been easy planning it (now more than ever, I don’t get why people have so much angst about weddings) and I guess all that’s left to do is show up and have fun. Oh, and get the final fitting for our outfits. My lovely mother-in-law-to-be bought me my wedding dress, and I think we did good in that department, if I may say so myself.

In the meantime, I’ve got about four deadlines, another week of travel coming up, and queries to send. Can’t say it’s ever boring around here.

It’s 5 in the morning, I haven’t slept all night, and I can feel the onset of a migraine. (Did I ever tell you I suffer from massive and terrible migraines for days at a time?) I had two articles due today, but because I worked on them earlier in the week, one’s already submitted and the other is going out as soon as I finish writing this.

I learned the hard way that you have to schedule for emergencies. Early on, when I was a new writer and still living with my parents, my grandmother (who also lived with us) died, and as difficult as that time was in itself it didn’t help that not only did I have to write to certain editors apologizing that I’d need extensions on my deadlines, but also sat knocking out words on my computer while guests wailed in the next room. My migraines have (and still do) come at the most inopportune times and because they can be pretty debilitating, it’s difficult (though not impossible) to work when I’m having one.

I do schedule for emergencies now, as much as I can, because I don’t know when I’m going to get a migraine and I’m going to want to crawl into bed and not get out for several days (only a few a year now, though, thankfully).

Don’t get me wrong. As bad as my migraines are, they’re not chronic pain, and I know people have much worse migraines than mine and at least I can function if need be. I have traveled, interviewed, given interviews, and worked right through several migraines, but those have been painful experiences that I don’t really fancy repeating. Even now, as I write this, my right eye feels like it’s going to explode, the right side of my neck might as well have a metal rod stuck in it, it’s so cramped, the lights are off (can’t handle brightness) and my computer screen is dimmed considerably.

The only reason I’m even online is because I can’t sleep, but if I wanted to, I could crawl into bed right now and not worry about deadlines because I’ve met them already. I like that. I’d like to keep repeating that.

I realize it’s not possible to plan around every life event, and it’s much easier to talk about not leaving everything till the last minute than to actually do it (trust me, I know), but it helps to try. I’ve found that it helps to set your deadline two days before the actual day of the deadline and meet that instead. That way, if there’s an emergency and I’m not feeling up to it for whatever reason, I can actually take advantage of the freelancing lifestyle and take some time off.

That’s what I call setting my own schedule.

I’ve been thinking lately of dedicating one day of my work week to doing fun or personal projects. Instead of sitting in my office, I could hop on over to the coffee shop, invite another freelancer over to my office, or simply take my laptop to the park.

Two of my editors have offered me an office space in their buildings, an offer that I haven’t yet taken them up on, but just might. And on occasions when I’m feeling very isolated, I have in the past gone to a friend’s office, sat among the other journalists there, and become part of the furniture.

I think I’m going to start doing all of those more regularly. One get-out-of-the-office day per week. I like that.