I am Cursed, I Tell You, Cursed!

The smell of the ooze being squeezed out of the massive lump on my face was simply nauseating. The milky yellow juices of the oil gland, trapped in a bubble for more than two weeks, burst out when the doctor's knife slashed across the soft lump. The whole scenario, even with painful local anesthesia that took away all sense of pain, still was discomforting enough to make me cringe, frown, and pinch myself just to have my attention transferred to self-induced pain from the discomfort. My face turned sharply white, and the mental toughness I am so proud of suddenly became completely nullified.

And the doctor was not done. "To stop further infection," he calmly and nonchalantly mentioned, "we need to cover the cut with some anti-infection liquid." What appeared was a a foot-and-a-half-long piece of surgical tape soaked in a purple liquid. He proceeded to shove the tape, bit by bit, into the empty space left behind by the squeezed out pus. Slide in, twist, slide in, twist, the work quietly continued for what feels like an eternity amid my agony of weird, god-knows-what sense of physical and mental discomfort.

Shell-shocked, disoriented, and confused, I stumbled out of the hospital with the putrid smell of the pus still in my nostrils and haunted by the fact that within the next week, there will be another session when the foot-and-a-half-long tape will be PULLED OUT of my face, in even more agonizing pain perhaps, due to partially healed cuts and perceived lack of need for any anesthesia. "What happened to his face?" People would have thought when they were staring my face, as I tried my best to avoid their eyes as I walked home.

Great, I can finally rest, so I thought when I opened up my computer as I stumbled back into my room. Then, the pain just hit my wounds all the sudden. The partial anesthesia was wearing off. The stinging pain felt as the doctor was once again slashing across my face, multiple times, over and over. Once, twice, thrice...the cutting just would not stop. Rolling around in my bed, I just cannot believe painkillers cannot show their effects soon enough. The combination of the pain with the itch of the wounds healing themselves just felt intolerable.

Blockage of the oil glands happened before, but never this bad. While I am lucky that I can be treated in a country in which I do not actually have to pay for the treatments, I cannot help but feel that there is a curse forcing me to deal with the issue repeatedly, with the issue becoming worse and worse every time it reoccurs. The swelling is bound to return at a later date, eventually forcing me to cut out the oil gland once and for all just to prevent future problems. The issue of my infecting oil gland may go exactly the same way as my infecting wisdom teeth, ending up with straight-out "extractions."

Finally the painkillers began doing their job, and I had enough energy to open up my computer. Waiting for me was an email from BCG Japan office telling me that I have been selected for an initial interview. Well, seems like curses do not act alone these days. On my way out of Rakuten, my boss made it clear all my ideals will simply die and I will end up becoming a heartless consultant. Well, seems like, unless I deliberately turn down the offer for interview, I certainly got my first step toward that heartlessness.

Even sitting in my stuffy and hot room, somehow all the thoughts of my curses give me a cold sweat. It is as if, in some ways, our lives are predetermined, with certain paths for self-destruction, self-damages, and self-hurt. Sure, with mental and physical pains of dashed job opportunities and extensive surgeries, we might somehow avoid that ultimate "goal" that fate arranged us to arrive at, but it seems that, among the many "curses" that envelop our lives, only a minuscule few can be discovered before they unleash their devastation upon our lives.

People seek advice from family, friends, professional consultants. Yet, being advised does not subject us to exceptions of unconsciously following what has been somehow designed for us. The path of life, in the most simple rationale, is one in which there are many restrictions but little flexibility. Our ethnic and social backgrounds as well as physical and emotional builds give us a set of initial conditions that we cannot escape, and no optimism, no special friendships, can really change all that.