Unsinkable Ship

I think that we’ve all been there. You wake up one morning feeling like absolute crap. A wave of anxiety washes over you as you are forced to look at yourself in the mirror. Dread fills your body as you realize that you will still be expected to act like a normal human being, or at least perform the necessary actions of gathering food to consume and not swallowing the bottle of prescription sleeping pills you just refilled. The truly unfortunate will have to go to work or leave the house, knowing that everyone can see the discomfort, the dejection, and the utter resignation to depression in their face. Good friends may try to put a positive spin on it, but most merely avoid you, knowing it’s better to keep their distance at a time like this. All of us have woken up with a broken heart or a severe hangover, but some of us have woken up with both, and pinkeye.

To say it wasn’t the way I thought I’d spend the first day of the New Year is only slightly less of an understatement than to say that Rose’s trip on the Titanic didn’t go exactly as she planned. So broken down and afflicted with conjunctivitis I took to the couch for days of mostly solitude to contemplate why it was that I allowed a little crush to cloud my vision. Only dating rookies spend New Years Eve with a new and not so single crush or get excited about a boy who hasn’t yet spent an entire year in New York. Like my regrettable decision to engage in personal contact with my pinkeye-infested niece, these were mistakes I thought I’d remember not to repeat. Alas.

The benefit of quarantine and limited social contact is that the healing process is expedited and you have less time to face the world around you grimacing at your bloodshot eyes, or look of despair that accompanies either pinkeye or a particularly nasty break up. The horrible part is obviously all the time you have alone to think doesn’t necessarily lead to happy thoughts, and the absence of friends, sensible enough to decline the invitation of becoming the virus’ next host, doesn’t make things any easier. The phone and Internet are your only outlet and you naturally want to purge them of any reminder of your heartache or misfortune.

When the 5-7 days have passed and your pinkeye has cleared completely, like the surge of strength you receive when you feel like you’ve finally regained your footing from a break up, you get to complete that oh so necessary purge. Your contacts and their case is thrown out, pillow cases washed and replaced, and anything else you may have infected is summarily Lysoled or destroyed. One can’t argue with this necessity, without these measures of precaution, pinkeye can easily come back, infect the same or other eye, or continue to spread to others. So why then, knowing the benefits of destroying any connection we had to an affliction, do we mourn so deeply the closure of communication between a lover, or even potential lover?

It often doesn’t take us 5-7 days to reach the decision to delete someone from our phone, Facebook, Gchat, and hopefully eventually our hearts and minds; in fact it is usually a rash and hurried result of a fight or particularly incendiary text or email. But deleting that contact is every bit as important as throwing your tainted contacts away. There is always the chance that it or they may come back to haunt you and turn your world upside down for an unspecified period of time.

As I celebrate my introduction to my mid-20’s this weekend, I don’t want to be plagued by anything left behind. The past was itchy and uncomfortable and it made me feel ugly and disabled. Free of these threats to the safety of our hearts and heads we can all take the opportunity of this New Year to look ahead. We may meet with more heartache, crusty eyes, or damaged livers in 2009, but we know we can always wash up and try again. As for me, my eyes are clear, and my mind is open, and the jury’s out on the status of my liver. As for my heart? I think it's safe to say that it will go on.

Appeared originally on homo-neurotic.com on 1/14/09