“I’m pulling an ‘Emily’” I hear her say. When she picked up and gave an absent “hello” I figured something was wrong. I ignored her and told her my story. It’s after my story (which her response was much more lively) that she says she’s “pulling” a me.
“What do you mean?”
What is “pulling an Emily”? What about me is so infamous that an act has been named after me? I’m at a complete lost? I ask “talking on the phone while driving?” which is what I was doing at the moment.
“No,” she replies. I make a confused sound. “I’m lying in the dark with a headache. It’s like radiating out of my eye.”
In my mind, I automatically think migraine or cluster headache? She isn’t sobbing so it’s a migraine probably. She’d be sobbing if it was a cluster headache.
So that’s it. Emily = headaches. I am irrevocably defined by headaches now. The dead stare wasn’t enough. Now when other’s have headaches, they’re “doing an Emily”. That’s who I am, migraine girl, migraine Em.
She goes on to tell me about her morning and the pain. I relate too well.
I don’t know if I’m bitter or not.
