Yesterday morning, I woke up at around 4:30am, likely again from the little bits of jetlag that I’ve faced this week. It’s not something to complain about of course… until about an hour and a half later, I woke up again from a half-sleep, this time to a sharp, stinging, biting pain in my right calf that would not stop, and I started grabbing my calf and trying to depress my fingers on the spot where the stabbing feeling seems to be radiating from. It lasted for a good minute before I could stop holding my calf. I was pretty much screaming or moaning the entire time, and it certainly felt like longer than a minute. It felt like at least two or three times as long as that.

This type of pain seems have happened every now and then for me in the last couple of years, and it always happens when I know I am not getting enough potassium. This never used to happen to me before. “It’s a sign you’re aging!” my colleague, who is in her 50s, told me, laughing. “Welcome to aging, you youngin’!”

That… is not comforting. I actually am very comfortable being in my early 30s. I am probably the most confident about myself than I have ever been in my life. But sudden muscle spasms… no. These are not welcome at all.