CHAPTER TWENTY - STAYING "POSITIVE"

Sometimes finding your confidence again means breaking the rules.

“Are you seeing a therapist?” Benvolio asked me over a Friday evening Zoom.

I laughed out loud. This is Benvolio we’re talking about. Even when she’s asking a serious question, her sense of humor is evident. But in that moment, her slight head tilt and side eye was probably an attempt to gather the information without hurting my feelings.

“You’ve just been dealing with a lot of stuff, and I want to make sure you’re okay.”

She was referring to the topics I’ve been exploring in this very project. I was a bit surprised, but I guess once I really sat down and thought about it, divorce, being thrown headlong into single parenthood, the resurrection of deep insecurities tied to my STD status, and sexual trauma… it did seem like a lot. Maybe a lot of a lot. Add to that the rapid weight loss and not being able to sleep past 4:30 AM, and I realized in many ways, it did seem as though I was headed for a crash.

The answer, dear Nurse, is no. I am not seeing a therapist. It would be nice, but part of the thrill of being a freelance writer is that you only get fancy insurance as long as you meet your union’s earning requirement. For a variety of neat reasons, COVID and the sheer competitiveness of my industry, I wasn’t able to hit that mark this past year.

“What can I help you with at this time?” Asked the Medi-Cal representative I had finally managed to reach last week after forty minutes on hold.

“Yes, I’d like to check on the status of the application I sent in last month.”

Nothing makes me feel shittier than having to put my kids on state insurance. It shouldn’t. This is part of what it means to be an artist building their career, but I can’t escape it. This is the second time I’ve had to do this now, and all I hear echoing in my head is mommy is a loser. To add insult to injury, my claim seemed to have stalled, forcing me to actually call and chase after said insurance. I felt like I was holding a cardboard sign at the Lankershim 101 exit. ‘Will work for coverage!’

“I’m not seeing anything at this time.”

“You’re not seeing anything? You mean, you don’t even see the application?”

“Ma’am, you don’t need to talk to me like this.”

Wait, what? Talk to her like what? I’m no angel. I’ve berated more than my fair share of customer service representatives, but I was on my best behavior, and I knew it.

“Oh… I’m sorry…” I stammered, “I’m just trying to be clear. Do you see the application?”

“At this time, I can see the application.” She said, exhaling with annoyance, “But the case number you gave me isn’t a case number.”

“What?” I stared at my computer screen, currently open to my account on the Covered California website. “I’m looking at it right now. It literally says ‘case number.’ Would you like me to give it to you again?”

“You’re not listening, ma’am.” Yes, I fucking was. “There’s no case number at this time, because you have no case at this time.”

“So, I need to apply again?”

“LISTEN TO ME…”

I rested my forehead on the table. I didn’t know what I had done to deserve this woman, or why she kept fucking saying ‘at this time’ every other sentence. All I did know was, At This Time was getting on my last nerve.

“I’m really sorry, but can you please try to understand where I’m coming from? I’m losing my coverage at the end of the month, and I just need to make sure my kids are covered. Can we just get my kids covered?” I pleaded, trying to appeal to whatever was left of At This Time’s humanity.

“You don’t get to talk to me like that, ma’am!” Oh. my. god. kill. me. now.

I got off the phone and resolved to call back another day. Hopefully another day when At This Time was off hassling some other poor, insurance-less schmuck. What a piece of work.

But the lack of certainty about my insurance status wasn’t making me feel any better. And that wasn’t the only thing.

As I mentioned, the dress I purchased for what I hope will be a reunion with Romeo at the football stadium in two weeks, is backless. When I tried it on, not only did my new, skinny bod slide into it like a dream, but my back looked pristine. Even tan, broad, and perfectly tapered down to my waist. I thought, I am going to look perfect. In the past few days, however, two unwelcome visitors had aggressively appeared, almost symmetrically, beside each one of my shoulder blades. Two big, red, cystic zits.

“Fuck me!” I whined into the phone to Sampson during what was supposed to be a work call.

“You have two weeks.” She chirped, “They’ll go away.”

Sure, I thought, awkwardly reaching back over my shoulders to slather them with hydrogen peroxide and hydrocortisone, but will they leave a mark? Are more on the way? I’ve had back zits on and off since I was a teenager. I thought, perhaps, now that I’m almost 40 they would leave me alone. No such luck.

And my physical insecurities don't stop there.

Since this project began, I have been determined to build back my confidence, on the inside as well as the outside. Dropping 13 pounds since the day I told Paris I was leaving him had helped, of course, but it didn’t fix everything. Remember bean bag tits?

I won’t say I have it as bad as some. Yes, breast feeding two children has taken its toll, pretty much pancaking the the old twins. But even though they’re deflated, they’re still symmetrical, and not super saggy or elongated like some. In fact, if you just look at them straight on, I think they’re kinda nice. Then, turn to the side… okay, not so nice. Clearly flat, and I could definitely hide a few crayons under there, but still, not completely terrible. But then, raise my arms, and instant ball sacks. I’m serious. The skin just crinkles in on itself, and suddenly, I’m the Crypt Keeper on Tales from the Dark Side. It’s awful, and it makes me sad every single time.

A breast lift is just not in the cards right now for several reasons. I just stopped breast feeding, so I have to wait at least six months. And that’s not even taking into account how much it costs. So, as a work around, I bought some breast lift cream and resigned myself to zapping my tits with my high frequency wand every single morning to help tighten up the skin.

Dear Nurse, I have done this every single day for three weeks, and I can safely say, it has done absolutely nothing.

Romeo had been shocked when I refused to take my bra off in front of him.

“You’re going to have to show me at some point.” He had said.

“Um, no I fucking don’t.” I replied, but the truth of the matter is, I don’t want to be you-can’t-see-my-tits girl. I want to be the kind of woman who doesn’t give a fuck, and thinks every single part of herself is sexy. Or at least something she doesn’t have to apologize for. And even though I absolutely love my pancake, bean bag, ball sack, Crypt Keeper tits for everything they’ve done for me and my babies, I’m embarrassed by them. I feel badly that they aren’t the stuff of Romeo’s fantasies, or anyone’s for that matter.

And where the weight loss had once come naturally - the upheaval in my life causing a general lack of appetite - I have found myself since abstaining from food. Fearful now that if I go back to eating with any sort of regularity, that I’ll gain the weight back, and find myself with yet another thing to feel ashamed of.

But why? Leaving Paris was supposed to help me build back my self esteem. To find me and start loving myself again. But somehow, between being single again, and the countdown to see if Romeo actually shows up at the end of all this, I have found myself more insecure than ever.

“And I’m so sorry about the herpes thing.” Benvolio said, “I had no idea you were dealing with that.”

“Yeah…” I said, trying to laugh it off. I had been trying not to think about my super awesome STD lately. It had become a fixation in recent weeks, and I needed to find a way to start getting past it. I hadn’t thought about it at all during my marriage. Paris knew about it and it was never an issue. But suddenly being single again, having to remind Romeo about it at the worst possible moment, and imagining all the talks I would have to have moving forward... it was like receiving the diagnosis all over again.

“I wouldn’t worry.” Benvolio continued, “I feel like most people don’t think it’s as big a deal as I do. You know me, that stuff totally freaks me out. I dated a guy who had it on his mouth, and I never let him kiss me. Not once.”

My heart plummeted and rolled under the table on the deck where I was sitting, but I managed to keep a polite smile on my face. Benvolio is one of the true friend loves of my life. She didn’t mean to hurt me in that moment. I imagined she was having one of those awkward pants moments where you know you’re putting your foot in it, but you think that if you just keep talking, somehow you can maneuver your way out of it. On this particular evening, Benvolio was not successful.

Dear Nurse, there are a lot of things I need at this moment. A therapist is probably one of them. A reminder of how much more difficult it will be to find someone willing to be intimate with me, is not.

“Yeah… it’s… it’s not fun.” I managed, and blissfully the conversation shifted.

But Benvolio isn’t alone in her fears about HSV. There are a lot of people out there who wouldn’t go near me because of it. Now, I’ll say I haven’t met any of those people. In my pre-Paris days, whenever I told a guy, thinking it would be a deal breaker, it never was. But that was 10-15 years ago. Before having a glass of white wine made me look like Benicio Del Toro in the morning. Before bean bag tits and stretch marks. Before I had two kids, a demanding work schedule, and an ex husband. I was hot and untethered, then. Of course they still had sex with me. Now, however, things were saggier, markier, and significantly more tied up.

I realized after the conversation with Benvolio that so much of what I’ve been doing lately was finding ways to over compensate. Making sure that come the 24th, I would be skinny, sexy, back zit free, and ready to bare my tits. I wanted to look as good as I possibly could, so Romeo would have one less reason to reject me.

Omigod, I thought to myself in the mirror as I zapped my tits with the buzzing high frequency wand, I am actively preparing myself for rejection.

And it’s one hundred percent true. Over the past few weeks, I’ve done an exorbitant amount of research on HSV, how close we are to a vaccine, transmission rates based on sex and length of infection. Anything and everything I could find to convince Romeo I was still worth it. That I was still the girl he never stopped thinking about. And I found some great information. That actually, almost everyone has either HSV 1 or 2, but the vast majority never show symptoms. Considering the fact that Romeo got blow jobs from porn stars, it’s likely he’s carrying around one if not both. And the vaccines are looking very promising. Two I found appeared to be in human trials and even have the capacity to cure those already infected. Sprinkle on top that female to male transmission without an outbreak is approximately 0.0017% during unprotected sex, and I had all the ammunition I needed.

But the fact that I couldn’t ignore was that I had started making my process of healing and self discovery about him. Or maybe not him so much as the idea of him, and more than that, the idea of him showing up next Friday and telling me he had changed his mind. That he just couldn’t take the chance of contracting my lovely skin condition, and that the whole deal was done.

Honesty is the biggest challenge of this project, dear Nurse, and so I’ll admit to you that this fear has, in large part, been driving me lately. And it’s not fair to me, or even to him. I have no idea what he’s thinking right now. And he isn’t responsible for repairing my broken self esteem. I am. I needed to find a way to remind myself that Romeo is not all there is. That this isn’t about him, and that regardless of my viral status, I have awesome shit to look forward to. And so, lord have mercy, I put myself on Positive Singles.

Positive Singles is a dating site for, you guessed it, people with STDs. I was charmed by the title. Positive singles… well, I guess you have to stay positive when you’re dealing with this shit.

Dearest Nurse, I can not tell you how many times I deleted and reposted my profile. I was terrified. What if someone I knew saw me on there? How does this even work? What do I say to people? And someone new… how will I trust them? I have never done online dating before, let alone online dating as an openly HSV 2 positive person. The whole thing seemed daunting and horrible. And then, once I finally did get up the courage to post the damn profile and start shopping for eligible men…

“Oh, good lord!” I exclaimed. Little was already asleep, but Big was on the couch across from me watching a show on the computer. I was grateful she hadn’t heard me.

The selections were abysmal, or maybe it was just the photos. I have no idea, but the majority of the men looked like they had just gotten out of prison, and the rest were either overweight, old, or just generally oogie. Maybe Romeo really was my only option, if he was even an option at all.

And then I came across the picture of a guy my age, well educated, and trim. Originally from the east coast, like me, HSV 2, like me, and what is this? Plays Scrabble?

I’d like to meet someone funny, pretty, active and intelligent, and get off this site. He had written in the “about my match” section. I smiled. Yep. I hear that. Maybe Positive Singles wouldn’t be such a bust after all.

I climbed into the car with Dog this morning and headed for Huntington Beach feeling much better. Sure, maybe I had only seen a couple viable profiles, but the point was, they were out there. Decent, normal dudes who, at the very least, wouldn’t pooh pooh me for having herpes. The rest was anyone’s guess.

Once at the beach with Dog running around and jumping on other people’s blankets, I decided to shoot Plays Scrabble a message. I shit you not, dear Nurse, this is exactly what I wrote:

Hi there... so I've literally never reached out to a person on a dating site before, or even been on a dating site before, but I was drawn to your profile. I'm an LA based writer and mother of two, who probably thinks I'm a lot more charming than I actually am. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoy me, and who knows? Maybe you

Fuck me. Hit "send" too early. I'm so out of my element here. Anyway, if you're free and don't like 1000 miles away, I'd love to chat. Then I can awkward in person, and that's always more fun. 😜

Omigod! So many typos, and I write for a living!

And you're a teacher… Awesome. This is awesome...

Okay... geez... well, I hope to hear from you. And yes, I am just as ridiculous in person.

I threw the phone down on the beach blanket and laughed out loud. Jesus fuck, Juliet! The hell are you doing? I should probably just throw in the towel and… wait a minute. What is this?

Suddenly I realized I had over twenty messages. I had only posted my profile hours before, but apparently the dogs were out, and I had a bone.

I flipped through the messages, and quickly discarded most of the “applicants”. Dirty message? Next. 60? Next. Lives in Florida? WTF? NEXT. And then, a nice looking dude from Venice Beach who was looking for “a mom for his dog.” That’s cute.

Hi there, just wondering if you’d be interested in getting to know me.

Friendly, charming, non-pushy, and didn’t call me ‘baby’ or ‘beautiful’. This was off to a promising start.

Sure! Why not? I’m new to this whole thing, so you tell me. Where do we start?

Five minutes later, he replied:

Hmmm, well usually a bunch of passive aggressive witty banter… but I’d rather just meet up for drinks and go from there. But maybe I should get your name first?

Ah, a sense of humor, I thought. I have one of those too, my friend.

Aw. Then how will I know if you’re witty or appropriately passive aggressive? I wrote back, and shared my name and number.

All the way home from the beach I thought about how I could swing grabbing a drink with Dog Mom. I only have three nights a week free, and right now, most of them are booked. Maybe I could swing a quick drink tonight after dinner with Tybalt? But I do have an important interview in the morning, so that might be a bad idea… But fuck it. An hour and a half? Maybe two? If I cram now, I’ll totally be prepared. But is the night of too soon? It’s totally too soon.

But I wanted to. You call it impulsive, I call it decisive. When I decide I’m going to do something, I want to do it now. If a Polaroid were a person, it would be me. I’m all about instant gratification.

By the time I got home, Dog Mom had texted me.

What are you up to tonight?

Holy shit, I thought. I guess night of isn’t an issue. Bring it on!

I have an early dinner with a friend, but if you’re willing to come to Studio City, I could grab a drink around 8.

I waited through the little texty thought bubbles. This was actually kind of fun!

Crap. Was all that came back, followed by a laugh-cry emoji, slowly followed by, Little too much for late Sunday night. Happy to plan something for next weekend though.

Next weekend? That’s no Polaroid, that’s disposable camera processing time.

Are you a weekend-only person? I texted back.

When I’m driving to Studio City I am.

Oh, for fuck’s sake, Dog Mom.

This is one of the few things I really hate about L.A.. This idea that somehow a 40 minute commute is outlandish. If that’s all a subway ride takes in New York City, that’s considered convenient. And that’s while being sandwiched between a bunch of smelly strangers in a sardine can, not your comfy, personal vehicle with the air conditioning on.

Gotcha. That sounds pretty prohibitive then. Nice talking with you though.

See ya, Dog Mom. I want a man who can fucking drive. And you know what? I happen to like witty fucking banter, so there!

Dearest Nurse, I know I said in my first post that one of my rules for this month was no flirting. There’s a good reason for that, but there’s also a good reason why some rules need breaking. I’ve discovered a lot about myself writing to you. I’ve also discovered a lot just sitting with myself, being, and adjusting to my new life. I didn’t realize when I started this just how insecure being single again after nearly twelve years would make me. And how dependent that insecurity would make me feel on the affections of a man who is lovely and cares for me, but who is not responsible for building me back up again. That is my fucking job.

The last thing I need is to jump into bed with someone I actually care about because I’m feeling lonely and undesirable. That’s not me. If I’m going to be with Romeo in any capacity, I have to walk into it with my head held high. Knowing not only that I have options, but that I am fucking amazing, and he is damn lucky to have me. Whether I weigh 125 pounds, have a couple zits on my back, or if my tits wrinkle up when I raise my arms. Good days, bad days, HSV 2 and all, I have to know I’m a fucking catch and a half, or this isn’t going to work. I’m not going to work, and this whole Juliet Anonymous Project will be a bust.

I don’t know if Positive Singles is the answer. There probably isn’t just one answer, but in spite of Dog Mom, it feels like a start. It makes me happy to know there are a handful of normal, nice dudes out there, and maybe even chicks as well, that I don’t have to have the fucking talk with. Maybe I’ll even go out with one or two of them in the coming weeks. Hey, if nothing else, it will be a story to tell, right? Bottom line, it’s cheaper than therapy when you don’t have insurance, and I know Benvolio would agree with that.

So, yes, dear Nurse, I’m breaking a rule. But I think it’s for the greater good. I’m really getting sick of feeling like a walking stigma, and more than that, I’m really, really getting sick of writing about it. Mama needs a confidence boost, and though I never thought I’d say this back when I was STD free, maybe what that looks like right now is a pack of lonely dudes with genital herpes.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Sincerely yours,

Juliet