The Day I Broke My Own Heart Because I Didn’t Understand A Story About OJ

This is going to be uncomfortable – but not as uncomfortable as it probably is to be OJ. Or to be murdered by OJ. Or to be orange juice and suddenly hate your own nickname. 

Yesterday I broke up with my boyfriend of a year and change. Is it very early to write about this? Probably. Am I insane? Almost definitely. I have never written about anything like this for public eyes before (unless you count extremely cringeworthy Facebook statuses circa 2007). I think that may be because I’ve felt like my emotions were so out of control I didn’t have anything useful or interesting to say (even in the throes of desperate, soul vomiting heartbreak I’m able to recognize that “BUT WE WERE GOING TO DO SO MUCH TOGETHER” is not a new take on breakup sadness, and while I may be wrapped in a sad bed burrito as I write this, I would sooner sell my soul to multilevel marketing than let the world know that I’m a fucking cliche). But when you’re an artist and you tell people you’re sad, a scene often unfolds  in which they scream at you “USE IT IN YOUR ART!” as if suddenly possessed by the ghost of Bukowski.

So really this is just to shut you all up. I’m using it. Are you happy? I hope not. I’m not!

I won’t bore you with the details of the genesis of our relationship – the only interesting meet cutes I’ve had with people resulted in relationships that were so psychotic they’re worthy of an entire TSwift album. Sam Jackson in Pulp Fiction gives the only meetup explanation the world will ever need, so we met “however people meet people.”

Something of note, though, is that I was so tired of relationships not working out that we decided we’d try this thing where when we had issues, we made the decision to *drum roll please* WORK THROUGH IT! That this was even an option blew my fucking mind. And I’m certain it’s the reason we made it past a year. I know a year is nothing to some people, but I am not good at sustainability. Maybe it’s the Gemini in me (or the having parents with unresolved mental health issues and inheriting a hefty endowment of anxiety and insecurities myself), but I have a lot of trouble moving through uncomfortable periods. I convince myself this (whatever “this” is) is how it will always be and boy if that’s the case you’d better leave now because you don’t want to be one of those suckers who’s stuck in some 5 year miserable thing they can’t get out of.

That’s seriously where my mind goes immediately for most issues. And I really mean most issues. We saw The Phantom Thread in theaters together and he absolutely adored every aspect of it, whereas I was sitting there wondering how the fuck I was supposed to find an abusive relationship amusing (eventually I realized that I guess it doesn’t seem that abusive to anyone who has never had someone verbally abusive in their lives, but I could write an entire 20 page post on this issue alone so I’ll cut myself off here). Upon realizing our differing opinions on the film, I fell into a deep pit of despair. I lay in bed crying trying to explain to him that since he enjoyed something that made me so sad we couldn’t possibly ever be happy together. And then I wrote the most intense journal entry of all time (I mean literally intense; I wrote so hard the pen tore holes in the page), which included the sublime line “I feel so much rage inside me I want to throw something,” and then I went on a tangent about how my emotional attachment to my unpopular opinions causes more issues than it should, in which I produced the gem “I feel so utterly alone. Why can’t I be right that St. Vincent is less lyrically complex than she comes off? It has to be that she’s not trying to be lyrically complex? I can’t offer interesting insight or thoughts? I’m just a negative bitch?” Poignant.

So we don’t talk about Daniel Day Lewis anymore, which is convenient timing being that he just retired (thanks, Dan.). AND we talked it through. And continued to talk it through every single time an issue like this came up (and it came up a lot). We talked about how I’m an insecure aggressive bitch about my opinions and he can be a bit of a pretentious dick about his. And we worked on it.

This dedication to each other showed me a side of love I had truly never seen before. But the thing about working through issues together is that some issues are too personal to be a team effort. My issues with anxiety and insecurity have, in the past, been too unresolved personally to possibly be resolved in a relationship. There are things that can only be worked through with a lot of personal dedication and a lot of time. And I think my lovely dude is there with his shit. My shit is nowhere near resolved. I’m like a supersenior at the college of My Shit. But he’s a freshman at the college of His Shit; he’s dedicated, he’s going to class, he’s doing most of his homework, and he wants to make the honor roll.

The fact that he was actively working on his shit is one of the things that attracted me to him in the first place. So many people (like, most people) don’t even know what their shit is. I knew I was making a healthy choice for once by choosing to be with someone who actively works on self improvement.

Unfortunately, an extreme desire to graduate doesn’t mean you can take accelerated courses (Jesus I regret picking this analogy. I mean it was good for the introduction of the issue but it’s become really campy and I don’t like it. I’m going to abruptly drop it now). He just wasn’t where I needed him to be with his shit. And we were aware of this. We spoke about it openly and discussed that it would be a deal breaker eventually if it didn’t improve at a particular rate. But again, you can’t just dump 4 years of coursework on someone’s desk and expect them to graduate next week (fuck, sorry).

Yesterday, I woke up happier than I have in a really long time. Maybe you’re used to waking up and not hating the thought of life, but this is a big deal to me. I think I felt okay because for the first time in awhile I wasn’t worried about Us. Though we had questioned the state of our relationship a week prior, the past week had been really great. We were clicking, we got each other, we didn’t get petty or mad about stupid shit like St. Vincent’s lyrical prowess, we chilled and played video games. I was going to go to the gym in the morning but I decided it would be kind of nice to just chill and walk to brunch together which we never do because we’re poor. In fact we hadn’t really just walked anywhere together in months. We had a really nice walk, we enjoyed ourselves at brunch, I put half of my delicious croissanwich in a box to go, and we left to walk back to his place.

On the way he started telling me about the last episode of Sacha Baron Cohen’s (I had to google that, I have never once successfully said or typed this man’s name) show where I guess Sacha disguises himself and gets OJ talking about the murders. On a surface level, I got it. Of course that’s what you’d want OJ to talk about on your show where you trick people into showing their true colors. But I wasn’t quite getting the contextual details of how he got him to talk about it or if OJ knew that’s what he’d be talking about. For some reason, I have always struggled with this; I want to understand all of the nuances of what someone is telling me because I don’t know how to feel about it if I don’t understand all the angles or the full message and yet I don’t know how to convey this need to anyone in a way that gets me the answers I’m looking for.

So I had a complete meltdown on Melrose Avenue in which I cried and screamed “BUT WHY WOULD OJ TALK TO A STRANGER ABOUT MURDERING SOMEONE.”

It’s definitely a “trigger” for me. It frustrates me that I can’t seem to just accept the information that people give me and have a normal conversation. It frustrates me that no one else seems to care about or need context as much as I do. And it really frustrates me that I fail to express myself in these moments because I immediately start feeling like a freak about it, like I did when I was 10 and then I proceed to act like a fucking 10 year old. There are a handful of issues that will do this to me. While I’m pretty logical and self aware, I am also a very reactive and emotional person. I have extremely strong reactions to things as they’re happening and then I calm down super quickly and am able to talk about it. In one of Marc Maron’s specials he reflects on how he hasn’t gotten any better about yelling at people, he’s just shortened the time between the outburst and his apology to the point where it’s basically like “FUCK YOU! I’m sorry.” That’s where I’m at, and we’d gotten to a point where he would just let me have my tantrum and then be there to talk when I was done. I have never felt so loved than in those moments.

When we finally got to his place (it took awhile. I stopped to cry on a lot of corners), we began to pick through what happened. I told him about feeling like a freak and hating myself for having this issue, and then something happened that kind of changed everything. He told me that all those times I had those emotional reactions and screamed and cried, he was just pretending to be okay with it and it actually really hurt him.

I almost threw up. I had just told one of my good friends about how beautiful it was that I was with someone who could just let me do my thing and know it wasn’t about them.

But how could it not hurt someone? When it happens, I often think there’s no way I’d be with someone who talked to me that way. I don’t even remember the things I say in those moments because they’re said in such fits of rage and emotion. That’s a scary thought.

I’m going to have a real moment of honesty here. I started this post thinking I’d talk about how we realized he just wasn’t where he needed to be for a healthy relationship. And I think that’s true. But through writing this I’m realizing I’m not a supersenior at the College of My Shit. I’m a fucking Junior who already has Senioritis and is now phoning it in because they’ve made the honor roll all 5 semesters so far. I’ve been resting on the laurels of all of the work I’ve done on myself and I’ve stopped short of the juiciest bits. I’m not saying the goal is to be perfect and never explode at someone. I think people should be able to be the shittiest versions of themselves sometimes and have people in their lives who love them not just despite it but because of it. But if I’m being honest I’ve barely been trying since I got comfortable with our dynamic.

We sat in silence for awhile after he said this. Then I asked him what he was thinking and he talked about his own struggles. We were quiet for about another ten minutes, but my brain was screaming “breaking up is the right choice!” And eventually, I said it out loud. He said he agreed. I got up to pee because I’d been holding it since OJ. Then I packed up my stuff. We both ugly cried for about 20 seconds and I realized if I didn’t leave then I’d change my mind. So I walked out the door and LEFT MY FUCKING HALF CROISSANWICH. I MEAN COME THE FUCK ON. YOU TOOK THE TIME TO USE THE BATHROOM AND PICK YOUR UNDERWEAR OFF THE FLOOR. HOW MUCH TACKIER WOULD IT HAVE BEEN TO TAKE YOUR FOOD?

I cried the whole way to my car and kept stopping to look back, hoping he’d come after me. I don’t know what I was expecting. What was he going to do, walk out of his place in his boxers and say “No! Don’t go! We aren’t actually troubled individuals! Or even if we are, let’s just risk hurting each other in terrible and dramatic ways anyway!”

Actually that does sound nice right now, if I’m being honest.

I’ve never broken up with someone that I love. I have either had my heart broken or I let myself get sick of the person. I feel like I just broke my own heart. I listened to myself and I feel fucking terrible. I’m the worst friend ever.

If you happen to be reading this (I mean him specifically. Anyone who’s reading this is reading this and this message isn’t for just anyone) please accept my beat up, bleeding heart. It’s not a great gift, I know. I’m not even sure what you’re supposed to do with it, but I want you to have it. I guess you can have the half croissanwich, too. It probably tastes better.

Exceptional, or How I’m Constantly Being Sent Home with Someone Else’s Appendix Surgery Video

When I was about 5, my sister went to an amazing sounding summer camp. Every day when we would pick her up, I couldn’t wait to hear her tell me all about all the art projects and swimming and horse riding she had done and all the friends she had. When I was finally old enough to go to the same camp, I had overwhelming first day of school type nerves and excitement. Even though she had told me all about it for years, I didn’t know exactly what to expect when I got there. Not knowing what to expect is one of the main tent poles of the anxiety I’ve had my whole life, so when the head of camp gathered every single camper together and told us “I’m going to list off all of your names and when you hear your name, your group will cheer for you and you’ll run over to them! That’s your group for the rest of the summer!” I was immediately relieved.  I knew the plan and I was pumped.

He began listing off names using a megaphone. Each kid would run excitedly to the group they were assigned to as group cheered and welcome them. As more and more names were listed and more and more groups cheered, I could barely contain my eagerness to be welcomed into my own group and be able to feel special, too. It had occurred to me that it was odd that I hadn’t been called yet considering I usually come first alphabetically, whether by first name or last name, “But look how happy everyone is! I’ll be that happy soon, too.” The group began to thin. “I mean I’m definitely supposed to be here, right? It’s Monday and mommy said Monday we were starting camp. And my sister is here too. And daddy dropped us off. So, yeah, I’m definitely supposed to be here. Unless they meant to drop me somewhere else and got confused? Or maybe I didn’t understand them! Maybe I was supposed to stay in the car! My sister is looking at me. Does that mean I did something stupid and she knows it? Oh boy I don’t know if I’m supposed to be here….”

And then it was just the two of us.

“What are your names?” someone said. I’m sure my sister answered them because we started walking somewhere else with them but I couldn’t hear anything over the sound of every single organ in my body trying to exit out of my mouth in a disorderly fashion.

Eventually they somehow got my mother on the phone and though I could only hear the camp staff’s side of the conversation and I was like 7 and don’t remember much, I will use my educated imagination and say it went something to the effect of:

Camp: Hello this is camp why are you children here?

Mom: Hello camp, this is Mom. What the fuck are you talking about?

Camp: Hello Mom. Your children are not on our list.

Mom: Hello, Camp. That’s news to me since I signed them up weeks ago and gave you money, you fucking shit heads.

Camp: I am sorry, Mom. You are right.

Mom: I know, Camp.

Camp: We will put them in groups now.

Mom: Good. Probably now they’ll be the weirdos because the other kids have had like an extra half hour to bond and have a fully formed in-group mentality and my children will now be seen as outsiders who must be thwarted. Call me please if my children are murdered.

Camp: Roger. Have a nice day.

I went on to have a perfectly fine summer, but this was the beginning of an entire life of being the exception to every system I come into contact with.

Years later, I became a counselor at that same camp. Originally we had a clock-in system where we would just write down our names and arrival times. Eventually, they wanted something more high-tech that would hold us more accountable so they introduced a fingerprint scanning system. One day after work we were all to come into the office and scan our prints so they could set up our clock-in account. The line moved pretty quickly since the process was pretty easy. Then I got to the front.

Camp: Just put your finger down and when it flashes it means it’s got your print and you’re good to go.

Me: It’s not flashing.

Camp: Hm…lift it up and try again?

Me: No.

Camp: Is your finger really cold? Maybe warm it up?

Me: It’s still not working.

Camp: Okay well let’s figure it out tomorrow so everyone else can go home.

They tried to get my fingerprint on file for the next few weeks but eventually gave up. Every morning, they put a clip board next to the fingerprint scanner so that I could sign in on paper. Every day, I dreaded having to explain to whoever was in front of or behind me why I couldn’t do the finger scanner. To this day, I remain the only one in the history of camp who had to continue paper sign-ins.

My freshman year of high school, I was on the dance team. I had danced all of my life up to that point so it was a natural choice for me. But I found that I didn’t love it as much as I used to and decided after the first semester that I would drop dance and try theatre instead. Though I was leaving, I was extremely proud of the work I had done in the first semester. All the dancers worked well together as a group and it is such a rare feeling to feel part of anything in high school. For the winter festival, we did a performance on pointe that everyone kept telling me I was amazing in. It was taped and our pictures would be featured in the yearbook. It was one of the first times I remember feeling accomplished and recognized. When the yearbook finally came, due to the angle of the picture, the only part of me you could see was my foot. I went to look for my name next to the picture and it wasn’t there. The yearbook staff had labeled the picture based off of who they could see and not from an official list of who was on the team. The school completely lost the tape from the winter performance that year. There is no record of me ever having danced at my high school.

The summer of that year, while working at the aforementioned camp, I had to take a week off to get my appendix removed (for the full story, see my page). It was such an ordeal but since I’m usually able to have a good sense of humor about shitty things, I was kind of entertained by the whole thing. When they told us that they send every patient home with the internal video footage from their surgery, I was so excited. There was no way I wasn’t having everyone over for a viewing party of my internal organs. Once I was all stitched up and well enough to go home, they handed me my forms, my aftercare instructions, and a DVD, but:

Hospital: For some reason we weren’t able to save the footage from your surgery, but everyone basically look the same on the inside and we didn’t want to send you home empty handed so here’s a copy of someone else’s surgery.

There’s a clinic I go to when I don’t feel like bothering my regular doctor with my hypochondria, and they’re often doing blood work for me. At first they would just call or email with results when they came in, but then they set up an online system where each client could log on to see their results and keep track of all of their records. I won’t insult your intelligence. We all know where this is going. No matter how many times I try their login procedure, it always says I have an existing account and no one in their office can figure out how to access the account the system is referring to. They kept giving me the instruction slips every time in hopes that the registration code would work. It never did. Now I have an actual email relationship with the lab and they know they have to email me every time they get my results in. To my knowledge, I am the only client they have to do this for.

I won’t bore you with every single example, because they’re all pretty much the same. My account doesn’t work or I have the “in extremely rare cases” reactions to a lot of medications or the DMV somehow created two titles to my car so I had to go through a year long process of linking the two titles so I could become the owner of the vehicle, which they’d never seen before.

I’ve come to expect it at this point. There have been times where I’ve genuinely wondered whether I’m actually a person or if I’m some weird solid ghost who manages to live a mostly human life but for whom no human systems work properly. Other times, I felt maybe I was just invisible and only imagining the conversations I was having. Sometimes I’ll stop a friend mid conversation to say “I’m real, right?” Because obviously my extremely urgent and realistic fear of not being a human person is more important than whatever my friend was in the middle of enthusiastically telling me.

I was thinking about this the other while in bed. “I just don’t understand why I can’t be normal. I want to know what to expect when I go to the doctor. I want to have the same easy system as everyone else. I don’t want to be in limbo with every institution because they couldn’t make me fit into their protocol. Why do I have to always be the fucking exception? Why are my circumstances always deemed ‘exceptional.'”

I sat bold upright.

There are two definitions for exceptional:

1. unusual; not typical.
2. unusually good; outstanding.

I’m not invisible. I’m fucking exceptional.

I’ve wanted to be special my entire life. I’ve been spending all this time lamenting the irritation and anxiety that comes with having to do things my own way, when really this is just the most annoyingly big sign that I am obnoxiously special. I don’t want to have everyone else’s life. When people ask me where I see myself in five years I say “I don’t know and I don’t want to know.” I want a life of surprises and adventures. I should stop bitching about the surprises I’m already getting.

Okay I lied. According to the google dictionary, there’s actually a third definition to exceptional:

3. (of a child) mentally or physically disabled so as to require special schooling.

But that doesn’t fit well with my story. I’m including it anyways because I don’t have to follow your stupid writing rules. I have a video of someone else’s appendix surgery. Do you?

 

 

 

 

Skin Tribulations, or “Why there’s a pillow in our trashcan right now.”

I’ve struggled with skin issues most of my life. I don’t call it acne because I know many people who suffer from acne and I know how truly terrible and heartbreaking it is for them to deal with it. My issues are not quite as severe but are 100% more mysterious (exciting!) because it would seem that the universe is very fond of giving me mild yet entirely unrelatable  issues that make the internet shrug at me.

I do occasionally get what one might call a pimple, but mostly it’s been decades of a thrilling combination of eczema, dermatitis, rashes, cysts, and bumpy breakouts not-otherwise-specified.  People (i.e. friends. I.e. the people who love me and want the best for me) keep telling me to go to a dermatologist and I (to repay their kindness and thoughtfulness) reply “FUCK YOU” because my past experiences with dermatologists are entirely their fault.

I’ve been to dermatologists before and generally they are very good at solving very specific, straightforward issues. For example, when I have a cystic pimple, they stab me with a needle, shoot some cortisone into the bitch, and it deflates within 10 minutes. I have found, however, that they struggle with the more delicate and nuanced issues of human skin. I’ve been given numerous products that “should help with that breakout” that ended up making my face have more of a psychotic meltdown than the pre-period Arielle of two days ago (topical: did you know that periods also fuck your skin up?).

I often get small, red bumps around my chin and mouth which the internet is, like, totally sure is dermatitis. When I have a flareup, I cannot wear sunscreen, exfoliate, or wear any heavy creams or oils. But please don’t tell anyone because if Los Angeles finds out that I haven’t been abiding by the “All You Need For Clear Skin Is Sunscreen, Exfoliating Twice A Week, and Coconut Oil, Ladies! Keep It Simple!” manifesto, they will make me watch 3 skin care videos, read 2 blog posts about the miracles of natural skincare, and say 5 Our Fathers.

In an exciting turn of events, I have recently started getting red bumps around my eyes and cheekbone. I haven’t changed products recently, I don’t use brushes when I put on makeup, I don’t incessantly touch my face, yadda yadda all the things that doctors are wont to ask. Which is why I was not surprised by the responses I received when I had my friend Katie (1/3 of the text group “Triple Bae”) consult her doctor friends on the matter:

No. None of the above. Also, the internet has told me to TOTALLY DEFINITELY NOT ever put cortisone cream on dermatitis (which I am at least 90% sure is the cause of the chin stuff, if you recall. I know it’s hard to keep up. You’re doing great). In fact, most of the sites about it list “cessation of use of steroid creams” as literally the only cure for dermatitis which is great since I don’t fucking put cortisone cream on my face.

I fed their thorough responses to the unrelenting tornado of conflicting information and thanked them for their time.

Also, Triple Bae could totally be a girl band.

Before my France trip, I had gone on a diet that the universe (internet) said would clear up many skin problems. I cut out added sugar, dairy, white bread, and soy. I did this for two weeks and arrived in France glowing like a goddamn goddess. So when the eyeballcheekbone shit wouldn’t go away, I decided it was time to try the diet again.

I have been soy/dairy/sugar/whitebread free for 3 days and this morning I woke up looking like I had spent the entire night crying tears of acid:

Which is pretty fucking metal but like I want to be pretty.

I greeted my boyfriend for the first time this morning with this picture and “WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING TO MY FACE. Good morning.” He was like “Maybe it’s your pillowcase” and I was like “I CHANGED IT YESTERDAY, NO!”

I promptly googled “does a pillow make your fucking face breakout” and the internet was like “Yo, it’s totally your pillow.” Which, admittedly, I’ve had since college and haven’t washed once, OKAY?! There I said it.

Within seconds, a magic pillowcase that allegedly clears up your acne while you sleep and the world’s most popular hypoallergenic pillow were in my Amazon cart getting checked out.

I then had 5 minutes left before I had to leave, which I used to destroy evidence of my evil, evil pillow, eat a plum, and warn my roommate about the state of our trash can:

Will keep you posted.

Avoiding the Plague like the Plague: A How-To for Stomach Flu Avoidance

For those of you who are lying in bed at 3 in the morning wondering how the fuck to avoid getting the symptoms that your friend/lover/child/spouse has just exposed you to, skip ahead to the 3 stars (***). You’re welcome. 

For those who are here to enjoy the experience of a neurotic hypochondriac avoiding a highly contagious disease, enjoy. 

I hate throwing up. I mean, I assume most people don’t love it, but it has come to my attention that some people view it as an actual option on a menu of ways to feel better.

For some reason, I have always viewed throwing up as a thing to be avoided at all costs. I am proud to tell you (and anyone who brings up the subject) that I have not thrown up in 5 1/2 years and the last time it happened was due to food poisoning; no amount of willpower will stop you from puking when you have food poisoning.

A few weeks ago, my boyfriend and I came home to one of his roommates violently throwing up. The other roommate requested that we take over cleanup and help duties so she could tap out and go to sleep. We both said, “Of course.” We are both liars.

The next day, we discussed whether we thought he had food poisoning or if it was a virus. I adamantly stated that it must be food poisoning because “it is violent and constant like food poisoning and he eats like complete shit,” which really meant, “Oh my god if it isn’t food poisoning I cannot fucking handle this I mean I’ve been here since before he was even showing symptoms and it says online that you’re contagious for like days beforehand and what if we shared food and I don’t remember and sure I use a different bathroom but he has touched other things and oh my god his cat I bet he touched his cat and I kiss her all the time oh god I’m going to die.” So I convinced myself it was food poisoning.

Oh also I got this text from him:

I told him he should never trust a sickly fart.

A couple days passed and  I hadn’t gotten sick. I was beginning to feel fine about it, and then one night I woke up to sounds of puking. I then heard the person go into the kitchen and then leave the apartment. I assumed it was Patient Zero, so I got up to pee in the other bathroom, figuring it was safe. I took one step in before I was met with the smell of vomit. I quickly backed out, but not before my foot touched something wet. I went into the living room and weighed my options: If I tried washing my foot in any of the sinks, I would risk further contamination by touching things that have been touched by someone who is infected by what is now clearly a virus. If I don’t clean my foot, I risk getting germs on everything I touch. I decided the best course of action was to put hand sanitizer on the infected part of my foot and not touch my face until I was able to wash my hands in a non contaminated bathroom. I readied my things and said my goodbyes:

Me: She’s sick now.

Boyfriend: Maybe she just went out and got drunk or something.

Me: She went to bed early. We saw her.

Boyfriend: I’m just not ready to jump to the conclusion that my house is infected.

Me: I am.

So I grabbed my shit and drove home at 4 o’clock in the morning. 

When I got home, I furiously washed my foot and quarantined all of the clothing that I had worn on the way over. I stayed up until sunrise (this is not a poetic way of suggesting the passage of time. It was literally light out before I decided I had learned enough) researching how stomach viruses work and ways to avoid getting sick after contamination.

In the morning, with my new knowledge of hippie health tactics and old wive’s tales, I headed to whole foods with a list.

I got this stuff to avoid contracting the virus:

And I got this stuff just in case that didn’t work:

As I left Whole Foods to head to my car, I ran into a coworker. She said hello excitedly and I yelled “DON’T GET TOO CLOSE. I COULD BE INFECTED.” She stepped back with a frightened look on her face and I continued on. Feeling the need to explain myself and the severity of the situation, I texted her to explain that my friend had shit himself in Canter’s Deli.

When  I got home, I started a strict regimen of supplements and I quarantined myself for 2 days, fearing both infecting other people and the start of endless pooping while in public. 

***For those interested, the regiment consisted of the following (skip ahead if you don’t care):

1. Taking about a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar 3 times a day. You have to mix it in something, like water or juice, or you will burn your fucking esophagus. No one told me this the first time I tried it, like you’re supposed to just know. 
2. Three glasses of 100% grape juice three times a day (you can put the apple cider vinegar in the grape juice). The grape juice works for the same theoretical reason that the apple cider vinegar does (it forces your body into an alkaline state, which stomach viruses allegedly hate), but a double dose with the two of them is best for the extra paranoid.
3. Ginger pills (the bottle tells you how many you’re allowed to take in a day. Just do that).
4. Activated charcoal (same as above). You’re supposed to get the powder version and not the pill version. In my haste, I started slacking in terms of thorough instructional research. You’re welcome for fucking up so you don’t have to.
5. Ginger and chamomile tea, three times a day.

The ginger works as an anti-inflammatory for your tumtum whereas the charcoal, apple cider vinegar, and grape juice “detoxify” in one way or another. Allegedly.*** 

I texted a handful of people to tell them what was happening in my life. My brother in law simply responded with the wikipedia page for The Bubonic Plague.

Most websites said that symptoms would appear 12-48 hours after contamination. I kept track by the hour and updated the handful of people who probably didn’t care.

After 72 hours had passed, I felt safe enough to begin writing this post (I didn’t want to jinx myself or write the wrong post). This was until my roommates brother, who had attended Star Wars with me, my boyfriend, and the second person to get sick, began throwing up and pooping profusely. Thankfully, I was not present for this, but I did manage to start a fight with my roommate over text by insisting the virus was the culprit and effectively demanding the bathroom be cleaned with bleach (which, according to the internet, is the only way to kill the virus. #themoreyouknow). I added that I hoped he felt better.

Due to my fear of further contamination, I didn’t return home for a few days and completely missed seeing my roommate’s parents while they were in town.

I left for a family trip to Disney World for Christmas and told myself that I would be completely out of the woods if I made it through the trip without symptoms.

The last night of the trip, my grandmother got sick. She gets sick often, so I didn’t think too much of it, but then my brother in law started throwing up and continued to do so through the night and into the morning. My sister informed me of this in the morning when we met up for what was supposed to be a day of the three of us at Epcot. She told me he wouldn’t be able to go and that they were leaving early. She also said she had a sock of mine in their room and that I could take the opportunity to say bye to him. I said I didn’t need the sock.

Turns out he has gallstones.

Three whole weeks later, I sit in my home reflecting on the whole ordeal and wondering if my neuroses was worth it.

In my paranoia driven avoidance of a stomach virus, I managed to:

1. Miss my friend’s birthday.
2. Start a fight with my roommate.
3. Fail to show sympathy for the ill.
4. Missing out on the opportunity to spend time with the family of a close friend.
5. Pass on the opportunity to say goodbye to my brother in law, whom I probably won’t see again for at least 6 months.
6. Frighten a coworker.
7. Abandon a sock.

Am I an unforgiving and unsympathetic asshole when I’m concerned for my own wellbeing? Certainly.

I definitely don’t think my response to sickness is the most respectable. Of course, if it were something life threatening like Ebola, any other response would be fucking stupid. As I said to my boyfriend (who didn’t take any precautions at all and somehow didn’t get sick. I doubt he’ll read this far so I feel safe saying that I told his roommate I hoped he would get sick. Like, he continued to use his toothbrush which lives next to the toothbrush of one of the infected people in the bathroom that was puked all over), “Of course it doesn’t help to freak out quite this much. I’d like to feel more ‘if it happens, it happens’ about it like you do, but there is also merit to taking actual. logical precautions. Like, I don’t know, cleaning the bathroom.”

If I were to leave you with any wisdom from this 3 week long experience, I suppose it would be to consider adding a little humility to your neuroses, if you have any. Oh, and apparently apple cider vinegar actually works (also giving a shoutout to Welch’s Grape Juice, Whole Foods brand gastrointestinal fix yourself like a hippie supplements, Nutrilite probiotics, and, specifically, Bragg’s apple cider vinegar).

Most importantly, however:

You can apologize for yelling at your friend, but you can’t take back shitting your pants in a famous Jewish deli.