PROSE AT THE PRECIPICE OF SOMETHING NEW
a summer baby who's developed an allergy to the sun: fml
I read somewhere that life happens in 7-year cycles. These seven year chunks track your development from childhood to adolescence to adulthood, from emotional development to Saturn returns and everything in between. If anything, it’s a good way to reflect and process things that have happened in your life, and to prepare yourself for the next chapter.
I guess one could say I’ve been going through a seven-year itch, literally. I first discovered I was having problems with my skin during the summer just before the pandemic after a short vacation. For the last few years I experimented with the idea that the skin reactions I was having in the summer - little bumpy rashes that pepper huge areas of skin on various parts of my body - were due to my pre-existing condition of eczema exacerbated with sunscreen that I assumed was clogging my pores.
Eczema has always been a problem of mine but over time I pretty much aged out of it, finding topical creams that kept it at bay. Growing up I always enjoyed tanning and the way I looked as the colour of my skin deepened to a mocha glow. Being a July baby, summer was my jam.
Well not anymore.
I had high hopes that I had figured out my summer skin predicament last year, when I discovered a zinc sunscreen that seemed to keep the red bumpy patches from manifesting. Still, as a precaution I continued to keep my sun exposure to a minimum, and have accepted over the years since my first outbreak that sitting out in the sun to tan is something I could no longer do.
As a new seven year cycle begins for me this week, sadly it seems that I just have to accept that me and the sun are no longer friends. At least, not like we used to be. A short vacation to the beach, fully protected with my sunscreen and under the shade of an umbrella with short bouts in the water to cooldown, did nothing to abate the onslaught of itchy red patches forming all over my chest, back and arms.
I love a beach. I love the way my body and mind relaxes and I feel as though I finally have the bandwidth to sink my teeth into a good book. I was so happy to have finished a substantial novel on the three days we were at the beach…but was the cost worth it?
Once the rash spreads there’s nothing much to do but wait it out. Perhaps it’s wisdom in this new phase of life that helps me be a little kinder to myself when my body seems to revolt and rebel. Already I am imagining how grateful I will feel when my skin goes back to normal after a few weeks.
But there is a kind of grief I am feeling in this moment. It’s the realization that I can’t avoid or deny this issue any longer and that fundamentally my relationship with the sun, with nature, needs to change if I’m to enjoy the summer. Looking at my skin and feeling the pervasive prickly itchiness reminds me of ways that I continue to be othered, that I can no longer sit in the sun or go to the beach with friends in such a carefree way like other people do. It reminds me of how un-normal and freakish I often feel.
It may seem like an odd correlation but since losing some significant people in my life in the past five years, grief has become a central feature in my adult life. It comes in waves of different intensity, some that laps up quietly on the shore, other times a tidal wave of angry, violent emotions. And in this time of adulthood I don’t think anyone prepared me for the ongoing micro-mourning processes one has to go through. Grief and mourning, big and small: the loss of a job, a dream that is slowly dying, the grief of losing friendships to geography, marriages, or time, the real death of loved ones who never come back in this lifetime, the mourning of a body you no longer recognize or understand. The mourning of certain naïveté.
In the early stages of Adulthood, when a career is so important, we often talk about successes and failures. “It’s not about how many times you fall, it’s about how quickly you get up.” They say.
I never really understood how powerful something like grief can be in one’s journey in this lifetime. But just like love, happiness, anger, joy, it is an emotion that is there, that is to be experienced, that is to be in relation to.
When my rash exploded after a previous summer where I thought I had it all figured out, I let myself weep for a version of me that probably will never be anymore, that carefree version of me who can sit in the sun and bathe in its rays while reading a good book. There seems to be so many things to grieve and mourn in this stage in life. But I guess for me, in this new seven year cycle, it’s about understanding and mastering the ability to experience both grief and joy, for finding ways to love the skin I’m in… in all it’s facets.
****
“Why are you wearing a long sleeve shirt? Are you crazy?”
He cowered slightly. “I have this really horrible heat rash and I’m kind of self-conscious about it.”
“Heat rash?”
“Yeah. For a while I thought I was allergic to certain sunscreen but now I just think I have a sensitivity to the sun.”
“So, you’re allergic to the sun?” He looked at him quizzically.
“Yeah, I think I am.” He felt embarrassed. Who’s allergic to the fucking sun?!
“So, what you’re saying is, you're a vampire.” He gave him a wink.
He smiled, thinking about his Substack, Lives After Dark, and all the fun and adventures he’s enjoyed in the night. He was grateful that his friend didn’t make him feel like freak, like someone who didn’t belong on this planet.
“Okay vampire, just don’t bite me!”
They both laughed.