Pierced ears and personal stuff
Sometimes you realize it's the right time to challenge yourself.
Hey there, folks.
Let’s hop right in, shall we? A few weeks ago, I got my ears pierced. Nothing too flashy, but some hammered metal discs about the size of nailheads. Right before the jabs, part of me thought, “Ethan, you are a 32-year-old man. What are you doing?” I even say it to myself in weak moments around a mirror.
I’m proud as hell of them though.
There’s a reason I’m telling you this: it’s an easy entry point to telling you about me. I don’t share it often, but I was born with a rare skin disorder. The abbreviation for it is called EHK. The full name is epidermolytic hyperkeratosis. I find the abbreviation much more friendly.
I’ve seen probability stats as low as 1-in-200,000 and as high as 1-in-400,000 in regard to people born with it (it’s not contagious, you have to be born with it). Either way, it is rare. I’ve only met one other person with it in my life. I fortunately have a mild case, but it can be brutal. Kids might not be able to walk, or even stand, because of the discomfort. They can lose digits. They battle infections constantly.
For me, my case came with other challenges. I would struggle to sweat, potentially overheating and having heat strokes (I don’t have that issue now, thank goodness, which allows me to be an active person). I couldn’t play football or wrestle with this fragile skin because I would’ve been covered in road rash. I had to be careful about avoiding infections too that could take off like wildfire. There are also too many little difficulties to name because they are part of every day. I’m not sure I realize how many there are anymore.
As I write this, you catch me in the middle of a battle. For years, I hadn’t had one of these breakouts that can become so daunting to handle. But over the last six months, I’ve had four separate outbreaks. Attribute it to an immune system that hasn’t been right since I had Covid in Sept. 2022, or the fact that my 1-year-old son is a daycare germ factory that has ruined my sleep pattern, or the feeling of extra stress because I want to make a freelance writing career work. It could be anything. I’m thankful for a good doctor who helps me address these issues as they come.
But to my earlier point about sharing: I never really had to bring up my skin condition, anyway. Because people notice it very quickly. It came across in different ways throughout my life. As a rural kid in North Carolina, it could be a classmate staring or making a harsh comment. Now, as an adult, it can be as subtle as someone shaking my hand and immediately looking down, or wiping theirs off on a pant leg as soon as we let go. It can be watching someone’s eyes move ever so slightly while they talk to me, finding a dry patch that I tried to moisturize but clearly hadn't had enough luck. Seeing those uncomfortable shifts are instinctual for me now, for better and worse.
To this day, I still truck through those moments. I try to make people see me for another reason as quickly as possible. In doing that, I tried to convince myself that my skin disorder didn’t define me. But in reality, it did.
You always wonder what people think when you don’t feel normal. At least I sure did. That feeling can still rattle me to this day, even though I know it so well.
When it came to my skin, I had to be regimented. I had to follow a routine. I had to make sure that things panned out the way I needed. That became a running lane for how I would respond to different situations. If my wife and I were running late, for example, being off schedule would dysregulate me. It could be little things, and I would have these massive reactions.
I noticed those emotions more after leaving my job at the Winston-Salem Journal and had my son at the beginning of 2022. Being a journalist was such a key part of my identity. Covering the App State beat had been so meaningful. I’ve always told sports journalism classes that this is the best way to do the job: don’t be part of the fan base, but be part of the community. It makes you approachable. That makes your stories better.
That was partially taken from me when the Journal made cuts and my role expanded. When I left for good, I felt completely lost. Thrown on top of that was being a first-time parent. Every emotion is intense when it comes to your new child — the good ones and the difficult ones.
I reached my breaking point. I started therapy (and I’m still going strong in it). And I realized that my struggle came from a feeling that I’d quickly lost control of my professional life. That being a major part of me, I felt lost control of my life in general.
For the first time, I was looking forward, and I didn’t have a plan anymore. I was afraid of that. Honestly, I still am.
I wanted to chip away at my need for control. Go against something at my core. I picked the skin condition that orchestrates my life.
In an ideal world, I’d get a tattoo. I always joke with my wife that if I could get tattoos, I’d have two full sleeves at this point. Unfortunately, though, my skin wouldn’t handle that.
So then I thought, “what about piercing my ears?” That was a risk and a challenge. That felt like the right move.
I put it off for months before I finally decided to go for it. Sometimes I struggle with follow through. I picked a place in Charlotte called Sadu, which prides itself on cleanliness (big checkmark for the skin concern).
We went on a Sunday. Rambled Midwood for a while. My piercer went by Leda, and they were awesome. I was nervous in that piercing chair, and that’s probably the first time I said “Ethan, what are you doing?”
Before I could answer, we did the left ear lobe. A couple minutes later, the right. My wife and I walked to our car for a coffee-and-tea run in the drizzly afternoon.
I looked at my reflection as we walked into a nice little spot called Undercurrent Coffee. I noticed the new earrings in that view. And just before I opened the door, I answered the question.
I did it for me.
I’ll keep reminding myself of that in those small moments of doubt. I’m Chasing Joy for myself too. And man, do I appreciate all of you here with me.
Take care and thanks for reading,
Ethan