My Badge of Honour

I hate getting bad news. Especially when that bad news is something totally unexpected, out of nowhere, slamming into you. Being an altruist, I hate hearing when bad things happen to anyone... being human, I hate it more when bad things happen to me. You can imagine how devastated I was today, when previously unbeknownst to me, I found out that my life was ruined.

It gets worse: apparently my life wasn't just ruined today. Apparently, I have been wasting my time, living a ruined life for the better part of the summer. The singular devastation of having a life ruined is bad enough. It however pales in comparison to the knowledge that one has been unknowingly living, breathing and cultivating an already shattered existence.

While receiving such life (or should it be former life)-altering notification is beyond-descriptionally terrible, delivering the apocalyptic message is the responsibility reserved for only the most strong and devoted among us. For this, I am forever indebted to Leah McLaren of the Globe & Mail... a journalist with such tact and composure that she was able to proclaim the bankruptcy of my existence as if it was nothing more than a trite daily event.

And so it was. My life..all 23 years of it. Ruined.

The demise of a life, 23 years in the making, deserves some build up. A eulogy... a lament for what was, what is, and all that could have been. But first, as is customary for one when dealing with a major trauma, I must avoid the process of denial, and come straight out with the truth. No sense denying what has already been set in stone. After all, with a life that is ruined, there isn't much else to live for.

So I will gather myself, and make this proclamation with my best Lou Gehrig voice. It is with all the courage and guts that I can muster, that I admit... that on July 19th, in this very blog, I suffered an event that will forever change the universe. A blackened toenail.

Because of an overexuberant goal of running, over hills and steaming pavement, for hours on end, I have forever lost the respect of my peers, and also myself. I must now hide behind the false sense of security that is the pedicure; dreading the day that lacquer goes out of fashion. I sense that I should remain indoors, and give up any shred of ambition that might cling to the bottom of the bucket that was my life... in fear of being discovered. I am ashamed; ashamed of pushing a limit, going outside the box... ashamed of doing anything this side of sitting under a lavender umbrella, sipping lattés, and drivelling on about the fashion faux-pas of those unfortunate enough to step within the scope of my cynical gaze.

However, in the hours since discovering my own demise, I have had a revelation. I have discovered, that with the ruin of a life, comes the chance of redemption. Like a phoenix talon rising from the ashes of a former existence; Lazarus in podiatrist robes... my toenail brings a sense of pride. A feeling of accomplishment. A sigh of gratitude that since I have now left the ranks of those with lives intact, I am no longer under the scrutiny of eyes that would look down upon my tarnished tarsal. I am not scarred. I am not stained. I have a badge of honour, and its name is black beauty.

Maybe my entire existence is shattered. Maybe things never will be the same again. I guess I will never know. One thing has become crystal clear.... something that Leah, with her nose held high, must have overlooked... she was misdiagnosed! Her blackened toenail couldn't have ruined her life. After all, the prerequisite for having one's life ruined is having had, in the first place, a life worth living.