It’s not called The Good, The Bad, *OR* The Ugly
How a mystery skin rash taught me a valuable lesson
This week, I drove seven hours from the beaches of the Outer Banks of North Carolina to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Asheville. I picked up many cool souvenirs in the Outer Banks: postcards, a sweatshirt, some seashells and a very red, itchy neck.
This is the part where I tell a great joke about how I’ve been in North Carolina just long enough to become a redneck. Ha.
But seriously, it’s really weird looking and itches a lot. I used all the oils and ate all the right foods but it’s still there, making me look like I am permanently throwing a temper tantrum or maybe that I don’t know how to apply sunscreen.
So, I did what any confused traveler does and took advantage of the local MinuteClinic. I walked in (zero minutes of waiting!), smiled at my nurse practitioner and said, “I have this rash on my neck.”
“I’ll say,” she responded. “Yikes.”
She went on to say more things like: “I have never, in all my years, seen anything like this,” and, “That is really weird,” and, “I have no idea what that could be.” Also: “Don’t tell anyone here that you’re a Yankee. They won’t help you.”
In other words, she made me feel really special.
My MinuteClinic visit was a little over an hour (oh, the irony). She showed me pictures of rashes on backs and butts and balls. There were no pictures of rashes on necks. When I went to sit on the table so she could properly examine my neck, I saw that she had Google open on her computer.
Sweet.
After she was done emphasizing that she had no idea what was going on, she prescribed me five different medications, including an antibiotic, antifungal, antihistamine and some other anti-shit I can’t remember, right now. Then she said, “If nothing is different by the weekend, you should go to the ER.”
Terrific.
Here’s a picture of me doing my best duck face with jock itch spray on my neck:
You are welcome.
This is basically a mid-level nightmare. Could be a lot worse, but could be a lot better.
Combine this with the handful of other pretty shitty things that have gone down in the last week, and I’ve reached what I’d typically consider my threshold for stupid bullshit.
In fact, as I write this, this is the moment when I would send one of those long word-vomit texts about how everything is fucked and nothing can go right and I wish I had never gone on this stupid tour and WHHYYYEEEE MEEEEEEE.
But I’m not going to do that. (If you listen carefully, you can hear all my friends rejoicing.)
As with many things, there’s a lesson here:
This definitely sucks. I’m in physical pain and I can’t even tell you what it is. The drama in the other areas of my life is palpable. If things continue to track downhill on these fronts, there’s a good chance I’ll have to cancel tour and go back to NYC. That would super suck 100 percent.
But you know what? On my drive here, I stopped at my friend’s parents’ house and had a sandwich with this kitty:
When I arrived in Asheville, I went on a run on a winding path through an area that looked a lot like Neverland. During this run, about 20 very good-looking men ran by me, in a group. When they saw me, they all took off their shirts and asked me to be their queen.
Nah, just kidding. They objectified me with their eyeballs in just the right amount.
My first morning in town, I took a class with Letitia Walker and in 90 minutes she single-handedly answered all the shoulder questions I’ve had for two years.
Do you see what I’m getting at?
It’s called The Good, The Bad AND The Ugly for a reason. It’s not The Good, The Bad OR The Ugly because all of it is happening at the same time. All of the time. I used to think life was peaks and valleys. But it’s really not. It’s just a big ocean of qualifiable experiences and we’re all in it together. Some of us are floating on our backs, others are doing the butterfly, some are doggie paddling and others are struggling to stay afloat.
The trick, I think, is to find a few people with whom you feel safe in the water. So, when you’re in over your head, they’ll throw you a floatie. And when you see that they’re struggling to catch their breath, you can remind them to breathe deeper. Then this vast metaphorical ocean becomes more like a pool party.
Essentially, if I were to oversimplify the complexity of life with a short paragraph full of platitudes, it would read like this: no one can solve my problems for me, but they can send me a few emojis or a Boomerang (if you’re not using this app, you’re not living). The bad things will be bad until they’re not and the good things will do the same. Despite all that, if I play my cards right, I’ll always have a rotating cast of characters in my corner of the pool and that will soften the blows of this vibrant, ever-changing life.
Make sense? Cool. I’ll be over here doing Tyrone Biggums impressions all day.
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I’m currently on the road, traveling the U.S., teaching people how to be okay with being human through movement, meditation and writing. You and your friends should come to one of my classes. Check out my tour schedule.
