COLUMN: M.I.A.

Sooo... how were YOUR holidays?

If you've been paying attention, you may have noticed the recent absence of my serene face from the weekly pages of the paper.

I'd love to tell you I was on some kind of exotic vacation, welcoming in the new year from some sandy beach while vision-questing a greater understanding of the world.

No such luck.

As it turned out, I thought it'd be swell fun to spend the winter holidays having a nervous breakdown. In hindsight, I don't especially recommend it.

Maybe it wasn't actually a nervous breakdown. I didn't get a professional diagnosis. As it turns out, not getting a diagnosis has been a recurring theme of the past few months.

I'll never be a cover star for Men's Health magazine, unless they do a cover piece on what NOT to do. I avoid doctors like the plague, especially when there really IS a plague in the air. I know they say living a sedentary life on the couch is ill-advised, but I've always argued that it cuts your risk of sports-related injuries dramatically.

I've had an iffy relationship with my gastro-intestinal tract for years now, which I'd long shrugged off as some sort of undiagnosed Crohn's / IBS / Too Much Taco Bell syndrome. But just after Halloween, some scary symptoms popped up that couldn't be ignored.

Rather than immediately consult a medical professional, I instead attempted to self-diagnose on the internet, which of course informed me of the vast menu of fatal diseases I likely had. For much of the fall and early winter, I was perfectly convinced I was on my last legs. When you're already living in a world where you're isolated and quarantined, a good solid brush with mortality does little for the psyche.

I attempted everything possible to ignore my terminal self-diagnosis. I meticulously organized my music collection. I cleaned my house from top to bottom. I threw away anything embarassing that I wouldn't want someone to find when they eventually broke down my door to dispose of my body. In hindsight, it sounds utterly ridiculous. At the time, I was completely petrified, sleeping less than two hours a night and pacing around my house like a lunatic.

Finally, I gathered what steely resolve I could possibly muster and went to the doctor. He seemed a tad less fatalistic than myself, but still agreed that I needed a delightful variety pack of assorted 'oscopies to rule out the terrifying terrors the internet insisted I was dying of. So that's the main reason I've been MIA - I've spent the past few months having FAR too many people enjoying views of the inner workings of my colon.

My first colonoscopy was incomplete because, as it turns out, I've been graced with -- let me get the exact medical phrasing I received from the doctor -- "an extremely long and floppy colon." Faaaaantastic. Apparently my colon is three times the length of a normal human's. This is NOT the superpower I've dreamt of. 

That colonoscopy led to a CT scan and a "virtual" colonoscopy -- which is "virtually" as much fun as a real colonoscopy -- which led to ANOTHER colonoscopy thanks to some suspicious narrowing showing up. My diet for the past two months has consisted mostly of water, things that taste like water, and colonoscopy prep kits that I WISH tasted like water. If you've ever had what you consider to be a poopy birthday, stop exaggerating. I spent mine this year doing colonoscopy prep, and I know the true meaning of the phrase.

The end result - no pun intended - is still up for grabs. Whatever's going on with me, my colon doesn't appear to be the culprit. I was sent home with a wing, a prayer, and some probiotics that don't seem to be doing much. Oh, and the CT scan DID reveal that I'm the expectant father of a bouncing baby kidney stone the size of a small Volkswagen, so that's next on the to-do list, I reckon.

All the while this has been going on, my mom's been having scary health issues as well. So between me, my mom, and the overall contents of the nightly news, it's been fairly easy to convince myself that life's a meaningless parade of pain and death -- a stellar mindset for someone whose usual passion is writing silly columns to make people smile.

I'm hoping one day I can look back on this and laugh it off as my Howard Hughes phase. When youre working from home, not seeing any other human beings for weeks on end, and think you're dying, things can get weird on the quick. I went almost two months without leaving the house. I stopped shaving. I basically stopped moving. But it's time I listened to Taylor Swift and shake it off.

I cracked some windows and got fresh air. I stepped outside. I stopped babbling to my cats. I reached out to friends I'd ghosted. I shaved MOST of my Unabomber beard (I couldn't resist currently wandering around my house with a 70s cop moustache because it makes me laugh every time I pass a mirror.) I'm sick and tired of acting sick and tired.

So who knows what the future holds. 2020 almost beat me -- but it didn't, and I'll take that victory for now. Six months ago, I was rolling my eyes every time I saw someone on social media talk about loneliness and being unable to survive a lockdown. Trust me, I get it now. I've spent months in a SUPER dark place, and it's high time to feel the light again. It's a new dawn, it's a new day, and for right now, I'm feeling good. I hope you are, too.