It’s been a while since I last posted.  I was afraid this would happen – that I would get preoccupied or distracted and stop writing this blog.  It’s happened before, but usually it was due to an emotional roadblock.  This time, I got distracted in the best way possible: I got a new job! (I lost my job at the end of last year and for the last six months, I’ve had lots of time to write as went about my job search.) Anyway, I’m back now. Let’s do this.  

This post isn’t for the faint of heart. In fact, if you get grossed out, stop reading now.  Still here? OK. Let’s talk about Herpes Simplex 1. Yes, I said it, herpes. Cold sores. Fever blisters. The thing that everyone wants to pretend doesn’t exist but impacts between fifty and eighty percent of U.S. adults!  (Source: Johns Hopkins University) I’m one of these people and I can tell you, it’s no picnic.  When I do get an outbreak, I feel like an outcast. Inhuman. Like a “thing” that a movie make-up artist created. (I know this is just “in my head” stuff, but I can’t help feeling this way.)

The beauty of cold sores is the journey they take you on. From that first tingle on your lip, to the blister that sits off the side of your mouth, to the scab, to the bleeding scab, back to the scab. You can always count on the process. It happens every time. The only thing that varies is the amount of time it takes to go from wanting to hide in shame to feeling you can re-enter society. Speaking of society, the only good thing to come out of this pandemic is mask-wearing, which is the best thing a cold sore sufferer could wish for. 

The reason I am writing about cold sores is because of my mom.  She gets them too, and knows exactly how I feel when I have one. Mickey even wrote about them in this letter, how he was looking forward to getting one because it meant that he’d be with my mom. I always knew that I wanted to wind up with someone who could do the exact same thing – take something that is a drag and find a way to make it not so bad.  (I did.) 

Later in the letter, Mickey wrote about making and raising a family with my mom. It’s just one of many instances that he talks about the future – one that he could never know would be cut so short.  This is what makes me the maddest. Not that I don’t have a father.  But that he only wanted one thing in his life. And he didn’t get it.