I Told Everyone I Had a Headache

Dear Delyara, I didn’t have a headache. I needed the house to lower its voice around me. A headache is such a useful excuse because people respect pain they can imagine. “I’m overwhelmed” still invites questions. “I’m touched out” sounds ungrateful. “I can’t take one more sound tonight” makes you sound unstable. But “I have a headache” gets you dimmer lights, quieter footsteps, less talking, fewer requests. So I used it. And the truth is, by the end of the night, I did have a headache. Maybe from the noise. Maybe from the lying. Maybe from how long I’ve been translating my real needs into more acceptable ones. Either way, I took two Advil and went to bed feeling lonelier than I should have in a house full of people.