So yesterday was a bad day, and I told you about it. Today I woke up and, before I’d even opened my eyes all the way, I noticed the back pain that had been bothering me for three days was just… gone. Not “stretched it out and it’s better.” Gone, like it packed a bag overnight and left a note. I actually pressed on the spot to check, the way you poke a bruise to see if it still hurts, and there was nothing there. Brilliant.
If you read yesterday’s post, you know it wasn’t a great one. I’m not going to rehash all of it, but I will say this: I did the work of actually sitting with why I felt so off, instead of just pushing through it and hoping it would pass on its own. And somewhere between doing that and today, my body apparently got the memo before my brain did.
Apparently My Body Was Waiting on Me
This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed this pattern, and it sent me down a small research rabbit hole this morning while the coffee was still too hot to drink. Turns out the mind-body connection between stress and physical pain isn’t some vague wellness-influencer talking point — there’s real science behind why emotional stress causes physical pain, and it’s not subtle. Your brain processes emotional pain and physical pain through a lot of the same neurological pathways, which is why a bad week can genuinely make your body hurt more, not just feel more tired. Chronic stress keeps your muscles braced like you’re about to get hit by something, especially around the shoulders, neck, and lower back — which, hello, that is exactly where my pain was living. And on top of that, stress floods your system with inflammatory chemicals that make your nerves more sensitive, so the same amount of physical strain just hurts more when you’re also carrying something emotionally.
None of that is new information to anyone who’s ever gotten a stress headache during a bad week at work. But it’s different to read about it clinically versus feeling it happen to your own body in real time. I’m not saying “just fix your feelings and your pain disappears” — that’s not how it works for everyone, and if you’re dealing with real chronic pain, please don’t take one blogger’s pain as medical advice. I’m saying: for me, this time, whatever I untangled emotionally yesterday, my body was clearly waiting on me to get there. That’s a strange kind of proof that the two things were never actually separate to begin with.
I actually remember the last time I noticed this exact pattern. It was back during the stretch when M got laid off and I was scrambling to line up freelance work to cover the gap — I had this same back pain for weeks, plus a jaw I didn’t realize I was clenching until it started clicking. A physical therapist at the time asked me, completely deadpan, “so what’s stressing you out,” and I laughed because it felt like such an obvious question, except it genuinely hadn’t occurred to me to connect the two things until she said it out loud. The pain went away eventually, not because I fixed the money situation (that’s still a work in progress), but because I stopped white-knuckling it alone and actually talked to M about a plan. Same body, same back pain, same lesson, apparently, because here we are again.
The Beach Bar, Last Night
Okay, moving to the actually fun part of my day. We have a beach bar basically right below our building — one of those low-key, plastic-chairs, string-lights kind of places, nothing fancy, but the kind of nothing-fancy that’s genuinely perfect on a warm night. Last night M and I went down for drinks with a couple we’re just starting to get to know, and I have to tell you the backstory because it’s a little funny.
The wife, I’ll call her A, was my 7-year-old’s teacher two years ago. Like, actual homeroom teacher, actual parent-teacher-conference, actual “your daughter had a wonderful year” teacher. We loved her. My daughter loved her. And now, two school years and zero conflicts of interest later (she’s not in the classroom with our kid anymore, to be extremely clear), it turns out A and her husband live nearby and we keep running into each other, and last night we finally did the “let’s actually hang out as adults” thing instead of just waving at each other by the mailboxes.
It was genuinely fun. We ordered a round of something with too much ice in it, the ocean was doing that thing where it sounds like static if you’re not paying attention to it, and we spent probably two hours just trading “how did we all end up here” stories. Turns out everyone at that table had some version of a life plan that got completely rerouted — a pandemic, a job loss, a move that was supposed to be temporary and stuck. Nobody’s path looked anything like what they drew up at twenty-five, and somehow that made for the best kind of conversation, the kind where you’re laughing about how ridiculous your own life sounds when you say it out loud to near-strangers who get it. At one point A’s husband asked what I actually do for work, and when I explained the freelance-pitching-invoicing-myself situation, he just said “so basically you’re your own worst boss,” and I have not stopped thinking about how accurate that is.
The kids were technically part of the evening too, at least at the start — all three of ours plus many others that were already there with their families at the beach bar. I bet these evenings at the beach are creating core memories for the girls, and they’ll remember them forever. I wish I had those core memories from my childhood… definitely not. But that’s something I’ll talk about in another post.
My Dad Picked Up His Dog Today
This one’s a smaller, sadder note in an otherwise good day. My dad picked his dog back up, which meant a goodbye (we had been dogsitting him for three days). This is one of the most noble dogs I have ever personally met — the kind of dog that just radiates calm, that looks at you like it fully understands the assignment of being a good dog and takes the job seriously. Watching him go was harder than I expected.
It made me think, obviously, about our own dog. We had an American bulldog with the best personality — have you seen the movie about the gentle bull Ferdinand? He was just like him — he was an absolute unit, all muscle and drool and gentleness, the kind of big dog that thinks he’s a lap dog and will absolutely try to prove it. We lost him right when we got him to Spain, which still doesn’t feel real to type out even now. He had this habit of leaning his entire body weight against your legs when he wanted attention, which from a dog that size basically meant getting checked by a linebacker, and somehow it was the most comforting thing. We will love that dog forever. Some goodbyes just borrow a little bit from older ones, I think, even when the dog leaving today is happy and healthy and just going home to my dad’s.
My Palm Royale Problem
On a much lighter note: I need to confess my current Apple TV addiction, which is Palm Royale. If you know, you know. Maxine is about to throw her party, and I genuinely do not know what Norma is going to do about it, and I have spent an embarrassing amount of mental energy today theorizing with absolutely no evidence. I’m watching tonight the second the kids are down, and I already know I’m going to be too invested. There’s something so satisfying about a show that’s this unapologetically over-the-top — nobody on that show is relaxed for one single second, and somehow watching people scheme in beautiful outfits over garden parties is the most relaxing thing for me right now. Make it make sense. My oldest asked me yesterday why I “watch the mean rich people show” and honestly I didn’t have a great answer beyond “because it’s fun to watch problems that aren’t mine for forty-five minutes.”
And speaking of over-the-top: can we talk about the MrBeast wedding? First of all, not my business, but I’ll say it anyway — I wasn’t a huge fan of Mrs. Beast’s dress. Doesn’t matter one bit what I think, though, because she’s the one who has to love it, and if she loved it, that’s the entire point. What I actually want to know is whether they were on Necker Island, Richard Branson’s island, because if they were, that tracks so hard with the vibe of that wedding that I’d bet money on it even though I have zero confirmation. And honestly, the whole thing has me sitting here thinking about how wild it is that a kid who started out counting to a hundred thousand on YouTube for views turned into one of the richest people on the entire planet. That is such a specific, strange kind of American-dream story, and genuinely, good for him. I mean that. It’s just wild to think about.
Meanwhile, over here, I’m still doing math on how we’re going to cover our share of the building renovation and getting creative about which bills can flex a little this month and which ones absolutely cannot. Nobody’s flying me to a private island anytime soon. But I’ll always have Palm Royale to escape into for forty-five minutes and dream about a life that’s only affordable in my wildest imagination, and honestly, that’s kind of enough some nights 🙂
The News I Can’t Stop Thinking About
I want to end on something heavier, because it’s genuinely been sitting with me all day and I don’t think I can write a normal, breezy blog post and pretend it isn’t. There’s a story dominating the news here in Spain right now about a group of four kids who bullied another 12-year-old. I haven’t watched the video — apparently one exists — because I know myself, and I’m too sensitive to that kind of content to put it in my head. I don’t need to see it to feel sick about it.
A lot of influencers and public figures here have spoken up about it, condemning what happened and calling on the government to actually enforce consequences — including treating this kind of behavior seriously regardless of the offenders’ ages, and holding the parents accountable too. I think that second part matters just as much as the first. Kids don’t invent cruelty on their own out of nowhere. They learn it, or they’re allowed to practice it without anyone stepping in.
I can’t wrap my head around the fact that we’re still having this conversation in 2026, like this is a new problem instead of one we’ve had the tools to address for a long time. I’ll say this plainly: if my kid ever bullied someone else, I would deal with it, immediately and seriously, and I wouldn’t need a news story to make me do it. That’s just baseline parenting. If you’re raising kids, please raise them to not be jerks to other people. Please and thank you. It shouldn’t be a controversial ask.
Thank you so much for spending ten minutes here with me today — I know this one bounced around a lot, from back pains to beach bars to TV shows to something a lot more serious, but that’s honestly just what a real day looks like. If you think someone in your life could use a little story-time break, or if any of this resonated with you, I’d love it if you shared it with them.
— L
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