After six weeks of battling a skin rash–a yeast thing–this afternoon I called in the big guns. I went to my dermatologist. Thankfully, after a year of them not taking my insurance, they do now. This means I got to see my favorite skin lady ever, who always listens to my long list of problems attentively and non-judgmentally. (I’m never short on things to worry about it.)

For my rash, my dermatologist wrote me a prescription for an anti-fungal cream, since the powder I’ve been using has been helping but also irritating my skin. (Two steps forward, one step back.) Then she gave me a cream for a spot on my elbow that’s most likely psoriasis. Ugh, I hate that. My grandma had psoriasis all over her body, so I always envision the worst whenever I hear that word. But my dermatologist said, “Don’t freak out. I’d rather someone have psoriasis than acne. We have so many options for it now that we didn’t have ten or twenty years. We’ve got pills, shots, creams, you name it.”

I’ll take one of each.

Otherwise, we took two moles off today–one on my scalp and one underneath my right sideburn. Weird how you can carry something around on your body for years and then it’s all-of-a-sudden gone. I’m telling myself that, likewise, my other issues can clear up in a flash–my upset stomach, my irritated skin. My dermatologist said psoriasis is an inflammation, and I said, “Oh my god, every issue I have is an inflammation. My entire life is an inflammation.” Seriously, that’s what it feels like, like my body’s on high-alert. I think, How can I turn the alarm off? How can I calm the fuck down?

Despite the fact that I got a lot of good help and information today, it’s difficult for my inner hypochondriac to not freak out. You know, because now I have more labels. Psoriasis and Yeast Infection on top of Acid Reflux and Just Had Knee Surgery. It’s hard to not feel like I’m a wagon whose wheels are falling off. It’s also hard to not blame myself. There’s this thought that if I were doing all the right things, eating the right foods, taking the right supplements, and exercising more, that I wouldn’t have these problems. And whereas maybe that’s true, there are countless people who do everything “right” and still get sick and die.

Because people get sick and die.

This evening while my parents watched America’s Got Talent: The Champions, I practiced knitting. Well, just after I got started, I realized I screwed something up. I still don’t know what happened, but I ended up with more stitches in a row than I was supposed to, so I unraveled the whole thing and began again (for the third time this week). This time, I really paid attention and didn’t rush. When the show was over, I was about eight rows in with no mistakes. We’ll see what happens tomorrow, but I figure this is the deal in life. Sometimes you simply have to begin again.

And again and again.

Personally, beginning again exhausts me. Like, I’ve been fighting this yeast rash for six weeks, and now I’m being asked to apply this new cream to it twice a day for a least four more. Four more weeks! That feels like an eternity. But my friend Bonnie pointed out that, shit, I’ll be rehab-ing my knee for six months, so four weeks is nothing by comparison. Plus, I know I’m not really starting over. A lot of progress has already been made. I’m just not at the end of the road yet.

The road. The long road. Tonight on America’s Got Talent there were a number of performers who said they slugged it out for years–even decades–before their big break came along. I guess we’re all looking for a break in some respect–in our careers, in our bodies, in our relationships. We all think, I’m not sure how much longer I can do this. That’s what wears me down, not the fact that I have dry skin on my elbow the size of a quarter, but the fact that it’s one more awful thing that’s shown up and is refusing to leave. One more burden to carry down this long, long road.

In my better moments, those moments when I don’t blame myself for my problems (Byron Katie says, “Do you have to take credit for everything?”), I tell myself that I have no idea why my problems are here. When I was a teenager I would have given anything had my mom been healthy and my dad been out of prison, and yet these two challenging experiences absolutely shaped me into the man I am today–strong, independent, more compassionate than I was before. This afternoon I read more in Wayne Dyer’s I Can See Clearly Now, a book he wrote when he had leukemia, which he ultimately died from. Still, despite his diagnosis, he said he absolutely knew that the disease was in his life to grow him. No self-blame, just acceptance. This is something I’m working on, not pushing away every awful thing in my life, but rather embracing them as my teachers. Not that I don’t want my challenges to go away, but like Jacob holding onto the angel, I don’t want them to go away until they bless me.