Warning: Self-indulgent drek ahead

I have an allergy to sunlight. I’ve had it since I was little kid. The condition has a name but I don’t know it. Terms like Polymorphous Light Eruptions (my particular case is a little different than PMLE) or Hutchen’s Summer Peraigo have been thrown about. In a nutshell I blister in the sun. If I’m not careful I look like Seth Brundle’s offspring or at least a skin anthrax victim. In what can only be construed as a cosmic joke if I suffer through the burning, itching pain and get a tan then my skin can protect itself. Let me be clear, that in no way is it as serious as say Xeroderma Pigmentosum (XP). I won’t die except maybe of embarrassment over the way it deforms my skin at times. All Things Considered did a great

I’ve been suffering through an unusually long, harsher than usual bout of it since my trip. The sun caught me through overcast skies, and my car windows on the first day. It’s unusual for early Spring sun to be so virulent. I can only imagine the new ways depleted ozone is going to make my life worse. As the rash has been slowly retreating for the past week or so I’ve been pondering its purpose. This sun allergy has effected my life in ways I never ever expected. The clothes I wear, the activities I enjoy and even my body language are all driven by concerns about exposure to sunlight. Watch what I do with my hands, or where I stand. My natural inclination was not to computers. I was much more involved in sports: running, swimming, soccer, and ice hockey mainly. Unknowingly, accidentally even, computers, and networking became my fascination. Coincidentally they kept me indoors away from the sun. I could catalog for hours behaviors of mine that in retrospect I believe stem from my aversion to sunlight.

Why? Why do I have this allergic reaction to sunlight? Even as a young child I anthropomorphized the allergy and saw myself in a struggle with some invading entity. Today it hit me though. An epiphany. It dawned on me that it has been making me into what it wants. Behaviors that I thought I had created were really just it changing me. I thought I had freewill all this time. I guess you could say I have. I am free to frolic in the sun, I just pay the price later. For the most part, I just accept the limitations the allergy places on me. My allergy tells me what I can and can’t do. I am a vessel for its will.

I think some people can re-read this and substitute concepts like Christianity and Jesus in for allergy. Although I’m just guessing.