face first

WARNING: this post is a little descriptive and unpleasant.

call them what you will: fever blisters, cold sores, herpes... whatever they are, they SUCK.

i've had these things all my life. i can actually remember times when i was a kid and all the skin between my upper lip and my nose would be covered in scabs and blisters. i'd cry and cry (both out of embarrassment and pain), and my mother would inevitably feel so bad for her second born that she'd let me stay home from school until the outbreak passed.

i don't know who passed them down to me. all i know is that i hate them (and that my older sister has recently told me that my poor beautiful nephew gets them as well, to the extent that i do). i don't have outbreaks as often as i once did, but when they do show up they make themselves count.

case in point? i've been hiding out all weekend because i have this horrendous thing on the left side of my lip. it's big. it's scabby. it's not a very attractive color. it's uncomfortably pulling at part of my skin as it dries. and honestly? every time i get them a part of me feels like that kid who used to get teased about being deformed whenever my mom deemed the blisters small enough so that i could go back to school.

so yes, i feel slightly like a ten year old, but i'm embarrassed. and i've been feeling physically ugly for the passed five days.

that probably explains my mood and this outburst, doesn't it?