Manning the Ship

Part 1

A year before the pandemic, I noticed a lump during a practice self-exam. This wasn’t meant to be the real thing. It was a dress rehearsal for something that I read would be an important the more I aged. A week after the exam, I got an ultrasound in the basement of a radiology clinic, where a cute, plump, uncomfortably chatty ultrasound technician smeared warm jelly over my scrotum, then prodded around with the stiff rubber end of that instrument that seems like it’s far better suited for smooth, swollen pregnant bellies than warm, webby testicle sacks.

“I can’t interpret anything for you, but you should know that you have _____. Nothing really to worry about. But that’ll be good for you to know. You know, moving forward.” I dutifully not, committing to memory the prognosis and immediately forgetting the name of the condition. I have no questions after confirming that _____ is non-lethal and non-cancerous. I wipe off enough of the jelly with the rough, thin paper towel she hands me, and zip up, smearing extra jelly against the waistband of my underwear. I exit the facility relieved and am self-assured further a few weeks later when my PCP confirms the ultrasound tech’s reading. Twenty-seven-clubber potential squashed.

Part 2

For years later, in April 2023, my mind returned to the lump. I was having bouts of severe lower back pain, accompanied with an occasional shooting pain in my left testicle, exactly where the lump is. I hadn’t seen that PCP since 2019, and after a series of job transitions, the insurance nightmare and pandemic were enough to keep me from seeking another. So I took a day off work and visited an Urgent Care facility – both moves motivated by Claire’s encouragement and warm demand.

My leading story was the back pain. It was really more of an annoyance, and Musculo-skeletal issue seemed less scary than reproductive issue. But I planned to sneak in a line about the latter, too. After some testing, they determined the back pain was a pinched nerve or a strain. No big deal, rest and ice should fix it. Case closed. Then I mentioned the testicle pain.

The atmosphere in the exam room fell suddenly, like we had blasted from the realm of the normal health issue gravity that had, generally speaking, grounded me throughout my life, and entered a weightless, uncontrolled space defined by unordinary possibilities. Here’s how it went.

A few questions in, the nurse said she was going to grab the assistant PA. When they re-entered a few minutes later, the kind, young nurse was no longer driving my visit; a tired, stress-exuding PA, the kind that looks like she hadn’t done something for herself in god knows how long, took over.

“So, you’re having pain in your testicles?”

“Yes, and my lower back, that’s really what brought me in,” I corrected, trying my best to regain some footing.

“We'll take a look at that. But the testicular pain is very concerning. I’m going to have to have you take off your pants so we can examine.”

We proceeded her way. I remove my jeans (great clothing choice) and lay back on the table. She moves toward the end of the bed, secures her rubber gloves, and moves toward me. I wince the moment she reaches for my left testicle. It's more of a “don’t touch my wound” reflex than a pain one, but overwhelmed by the moment, my quiet panic turns more visible, and I start shaking and crying.

“We need to send you to the ER now. You need an ultrasound. We can’t do it here, but you could lose your testicle. I don’t mean to scare you, but if this is torsion, you could lose it.”

Part 3

Leading up to that day, I’d been joking with Claire about wanting to cut off my testicles. The pain I’d been experiencing was the main reason for the joke, plus the general fear I was living with for my balls at that time, careful not to hit, zip, flick, anything them, or make them the object of sexual touch, was tiring. Not exhausting, but annoying enough. For those without balls, I think the best way to describe what it’s like to carry them is like this. Imagine your eyeballs are the texture of an overripe blueberry. We’re protective of our eyes, but things happen: occasionally you poke yourself or rub too hard. And when you do, you get a momentary shooting pain that bends you over, and once that fire subsides the dull pain takes its place and lasts for an hour or so.

At this point, I’m fully freaked out and every slight groin sensation I feel on my walk to the ER makes me wince and pause. My stride is deliberately wider so that they make no unnecessary contact. My tears and panic continue as the ER PA assesses me and the overworked Slavic nurse shoves an IV of who-knows-which painkiller into my unwilling arm. For hours, Claire sits on the edge of the hospital bed as I eat up the rest with my lanky, frozen lower body.

Finally, I’m called back to the ultrasound area and I waddle my way over. I’m asked to sit in the waiting area while they finish up with a frail teenage boy who needs assistance just to propel his walker. Alvin Bragg is on the tv in my zone. He’s announcing the latest charges against Trump, and some nurses on a break from their bustle slide beside me to catch some other drama. Luckily, we are in NYC and, for the most part, are on the same side.

Bragg is speaking and I’m listening but I’m not comprehending anything but my pain and mortality and desire for this day to end. The ultrasound tech pops his head out of the dark exam to usher me in. He’s a plain-clothes Dracula lookalike, and I find subtle amusement in this stroke of luck. I follow his gesture. It turns out he’s chatty and jokey too, just like my ultrasound tech in 2019. He’s complaining about colleagues calling out sick, about how he can’t wait to get home. (When I’d have my stomach ultrasound a month later, back in that basement radiology facility where I started this journey, the tech wants to talk about playoff basketball and demands my stance on the MJ versus Lebron argument. I abide, with greater enthusiasm that I truly feel, talking as much as possible so he can focus on the job.) Dracula seems put-out by the nature of my visit.

“Here’s what you’re gonna do – tuck your penis up into this two and cross your left leg over your right one so that…yeah…like that.”

He begins the exam. Immediately I sense that’ he’s rougher than I’m used to, exploring the territory with the jumps and plummets of a concerning polygraph. He gives credence to the denigrating medical prefix “ER-“ as in “ER nurse” or “ER doctor” – someone who’s there to help but whose primary concern is that your heart and brain aren’t exploding and you’re not bleeding out at too uncomfortable a rate. A few moments after the initial prodding though, the experience becomes familiar.

“Do you know you have _____?”

“Um, I don’t think…no, what is that?” Nerves ramping up.

“A varicocele is like a varicose vein, but for the veins that run into your testicles. They’re larger than normal. Between you and me,” he looks away from the screen and makes stiff, pleading eye contact,” you should just know that you have this because….it can cause…complications.”

“Like what?”

“Like…you know, for a man, maybe you’re feeling really tired, maybe it can lower your testosterone,” he replies, annunciating the answer as if those were two of the three things he wanted to mention. The words hang for a second as our minds expand separately on the possible implications of lowered testosterone. I break the silence.

“So you mean a lower sex drive?”

“No, no, not lower sex drive,” he corrects, quickly. “You have a phone?” I nod. “Look it up when you go back. It’s just…important for you to know.”

I remember hearing this line before.

Dracula clears me, I do my half-assed jelly wiping routine, and I return to Claire and our temporary campground at ER bed 17. I Google. Varicocele: common, not life-threatening. I don’t stop there this time. Varicocele: can cause dull or shooting pain, as well as infertility in some men. I understand the dog whistle.

Part 4

I grew up without a father; or rather, I grew up with a dead father. It’s a different kind of absence, I imagine. My grandfather (paternal) never knew his parents and never knew anyone who knew his parents. His mother, a nurse, died at 23 after contracting TB working in a ward. His father, allegedly a writer but most certainly a drunk, couldn’t handle the responsibility of single-parenting three toddlers, so he put my grandpa and his brother and sister in an orphanage, where they mostly lived and sometimes left on the occasions when they were sent to live in foster homes. At seventeen, my grandpa lied about his age to leave the foster system and join the Seabees. After that, he met the love of his life and, with her, built the family he’d always dreamed of having -- five children, about 20 grandkids. My mom, his lone daughter-in-law, would ask him, “Jim, don’t you miss your mom and dad?” His reply, without fail, according to my mom: “How can you miss something you never had?”

For me, things were different. I lost my dad at a very young age but I retained a family that knew him, loved him, and missed him. Still, I don’t know my dad’s favorite food, I don’t really know his politics, I don’t know what he loved about my mom or what went through his mind when he learned that the cancer would be terminal and fast and that he’d be leaving behind a three-year-old. These were things that could have been shared with me but which, understandably, weren’t. I've heard, “We didn’t want to make you sad" a few times, and to that end, my family succeeded. My childhood isn’t characterized by grief. I don’t recall feeling pangs of sadness the way I recall instances – and a general feeling – of love, and warmth, and wonder, like sledding with my aunt in Breezy Point and telling her to stop for a moment because, look up, I see angels.

Circumnavigating my dad was a defense mechanism that protected me and endeared me to my surviving family. But it did not erase the fact that a chess piece was missing from the board; an important one, at that. When I grew older and started to have questions, and when I’d convene with my dad in my mind, the person I was trying to understand and learn from was an automaton, a wire monkey father. It looked and felt like a man but its responses were limited, its range incredibly narrow. It was far less cooperative than Chat GPT. I have about 10 core memories of my dad, most of which were imparted to me by others, and I know about three attributes of his. When I needed to ask him about going to college, or breaking up with a girlfriend, or quitting football, or why my family is like that or why I’m like this, all I’d have is an irrelevant story trait of his to fall back on. With those few drops, I was left to water a garden of curiosities.

Part 5

My mom used to say – and continues to say – “I’m your mom and your dad!” Tactically speaking, she’s 100% right. She raised me as a single-parent, she had to work full-time for most of my childhood, and she never had an easy chance to pass me off to someone else so she could take care of herself for a little while. It was Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy, 24/7. I believe there are few people on Earth who could have done better, who could have given so much with so little. Emotionally-speaking, however, my mom could never fill the void my dad left. To try was a fool’s errand. It’s not that she couldn’t give enough, though. In fact, it really has nothing to do with her or anyone but him.

Part 6

At the direction of the ER PA, I scheduled an appointment with a urologist to interpret the results of Dracula’s ultrasound images. I met with him a few weeks later, after the painful flare ups had subsided. I had a lot of questions because I’d done a lot of Googling.

1. Why does the ultrasound show a right-side varicocele when I only feel pain on the left?

2. Since the right side is far less common and abnormal, does that mean I have a stomach tumor blocking the blood flow?

3. Should I take a fertility test?

The visit was unsatisfying, but I did get some answers.

1. You have them on both sides.

2. Maybe, we’ll see.

3. No, wait until you’re trying.

He told me he doesn’t believe varicoceles cause pain and that there must be some underlying cause.

“Are you concerned,” I asked with my body language.

“Not a bit,” he replied with his.

Part 7

I’m in the midst of sorting this health stuff out now and I find myself at a strange juncture, where the question of what it means to be a man embodies emotional, societal, and physical tenors. Emotionally, I don’t know my dad and I don’t really have an older male example that I’d like to live up to. (I foolishly fell for some masculinity snake charmers in my youth but have since wizened up.) I don’t know what being a man means in a social context these days because – and thank god for this – that engineered binary between man versus woman is eroding in the public sphere. Physically, I’m confused where this lowered testosterone, possible infertility, and half-hearted desire to cut the damn things off leaves me.

My therapist yells at me (not at all – gently reminds me) frequently when I complain about not having an archetype in my mind for XYZ and therefore don’t know how to achieve XYZ. “Look internally for those definitions. Why do you need an example? Look at all the things you’ve already don’t without an example.”

In some sense, that’s right. I’ve done and I am so many things that weren’t preceded by specific instruction. That’s true for all of us, I think. But representation matters, too.

I’ve had a few good conversations with a few great friends about manhood and masculinity. We come to similar conclusions in our definitions.

A good man is:

Protective, but not overbearing
Caring, but not a pushover
Open-minded
Curious more than judgmental
Judgmental instead of violent
Giving and unselfish, but unwilling to neglect themself
Trying to be better every day, but resilient when that doesn’t always happen
Respectful
Patient
Decisive but not controlling
Giving but not unwilling to ask for what he wants, or to receive it
Pragmatic at times, eccentric at times
In touch with femininity, to whatever degree feels truly right for him
Willing and open to reconsider notions he holds about himself, others, and the world
Family-oriented, in whatever – and i mean this broadly – way he defines “family”
A good listener
A willing and capable communicator
Open about his emotions, both when he decides to share and when he’s questioned by others
Loving
Passionate, but not jealous or vengeful
Tolerant, very broadly speaking
Intolerant, about very few things, but with good reason
Selfless
Brave, but not foolishly so
*Owns up to his mistakes

This list isn’t exhaustive, of course, and many, if not all, of these traits are not exclusive to men. I take no credit for any inclusions but I’ll accept any fault. (Hmm, whether to add “Owns up to his mistakes”?).

Part 8

It’s difficult to remember, let alone balance, all of these qualities. My innate tendencies lean (heavily…perhaps “drunkenly fall” is more apt) toward people-pleasing, conflict avoidance, and submissiveness, especially with people I don’t know very well. Confrontation pulls me away from the manhood paradigm I set for myself.

When I ask myself, or my therapist asks me, why I didn’t act more XYZ in a certain situation, which would have been more aligned with my values, my answer is cyclical, I find: because I want this person to like me or because I started to feel those physical symptoms of the conflict, where your heart beats time times harder and your voice quivers, your mind races toward accusations, away from reason. I submit because I believe the path of least resistance is submission. Here, I can still get what I want. I can come out of this conflict with the possibility that this person will still like me, will find my appeasement a virtue rather than a lever to pull and exploit at their demand.

When I was reminded about the varicoceles a few months ago and I learned that low testosterone is a common symptom, my mind got to work filling in some gaps. Maybe that’s why certain qualities of a good man are out of reach for me. It was suddenly easy, and very tempting, to blame any perceived personal manhood deficiencies to a chemical imbalance. The fact that Claire is currently dealing with a very similar and very real hormonal imbalance further goaded me to frame testosterone as the culprit.

Part 9

There is someone in my life, an older cousin, who is the closest person I can look to for masculine guidance. About twenty years my senior, he lost his dad to cirrhosis of the liver when he was about seven. My dad stepped in as his father figure, and then he died too when my cousin was in his early twenties. Two tough times to be looking, however passively, for masculine guidance and to find that no one comes to answer your ringing bell.

Our family isn't a stranger to trauma, but early death is uncommon for us. So because of his and I’s similar history of loss, I have always felt connected to him on an intimate dimension. The first part of his life was spent motorcycling, surfing, and catching the attention of Sony Music with his gruff guitar playing and smooth but assertive tenor. Once he met his now wife and his first kid came around, things changed in a major way. As a parent, he's attentive, loving, and firm. When he's finished working 12-hour days, he gives just about every cell in his body to domestic matters in a real "man's man" way. He turned backyard dirt into fertile soil. He built massive garden planters that bloom with gourds, beans, nightshades, berries, grapes, and flowers. He dredged a line, two feet deep, and laid lines for irrigation and lighting. He built a big red chicken coop to house a dozen hens and a rooster; his three boys run every morning to trade feed for the morning eggs. And in his free time, he cleared the remaining yard and built a baseball field so the boys never had to go a minute without.

When I visit them now, I am soaked in boyhood and manhood of various stages. And they are comfortable and delighted with their setup. It gives me some flashbacks to my own boyhood; mostly the silliness and smelliness, the strained and often restrained fight against convention for individuality, and the sports. When their dad comes into the mix, the boyhood I witness loses clarity, gets fuzzy in the face, becomes unrecognizable, distant. Boyhood joy encouraged by man, boyhood malfeasance punished by man -- these are dynamics I'm unaccustomed to seeing so intimately.

I'm unsure why, with such a powerful example of family manhood before me, I don't spend more time with them, absorbing all that I can and then making my own decisions about how I'd like to be. All I can say is that example is not entirely fit for me. Sometimes it feels so codified that there isn't room for adjustment. Maybe that's because this line of manhood is so nascent, so near its origin. Perhaps what I want is a legacy of manhood, generations upon generations of good men, one endowing the next with guidance. A manhood fermented and purified over time.

Perhaps finding a good man to emulate isn’t like a prix fixe dinner, where you have to go all in (ie, submit) to a single person’s vision of things. Perhaps it’s more of an a la carte situation where you, the diner, get to look around at the options and choose what works best for you. In that sense, the goal wouldn't be to find one perfect man, but to look to as many men as possible to find good and bad, and to calibrate yourself as you see fit.

Part 10

One of my mom’s most used lines, which is sometimes a complaint, is: “I don’t feel XYZ years old, I feel like I’m 16!” There’s some truth to that from the outside looking in. Ask anyone who knows her and they’ll tell you that her youthful energy and desires are a core defining feature.

I have a similar tendency. But for me, it generates more tangible problems. For her, it generates tangible happiness but intangible, frustrating life complications. For me, I constantly feel younger than I actually am. In my head, I feel about 18, not 28. I read or heard somewhere that our internally perceived age can be calibrated according to major life events. Something happened at 18 that froze certain parts of me, while other parts continued, much like glitching graphics on a computer screen. That’s not the subject of this essay, but it’s here to say that my internally perceived age is young, cautious, and risk-averse after having been burned.

Sometimes I’ll be with a group of friends, or in a one-on-one meeting with my boss, or walking down the street, and I lose sight of what I look like. I imagine my hair longer and wilder and my face smoother and juvenile, my demeanor more “college freshman.” I’ll run to the nearest bathroom to reconvene with the mirror and am stunned at the man before me. Stunned by his put-togetherness, stunned by his handsomeness, stunned by his beard and his emerging crows feet. The sight of an older version of me gives me confidence and power to believe in myself and my ambitions.

Conversely, I have a side of me that sees my internally perceived age as much older; senior, in fact. Hypochondria runs in my family. My dad’s dad went to the doctor daily for a month after he retired because every day, he thought he had a new terminal illness; “Jim,” the doctor pleaded,”you’re gonna die, I’m gonna die, we’re all gonna die…you’re healthy, now go and live your life with your family and don’t come back unless it’s serious.” I’m sure there were many times when it was “serious” over the next week, but that guidance cut my grandpa loose from his own anxious thinking. His was age-appropriate, as he was in his 70s at the time. But between those genetics, losing a dad early, growing up with a mom who has a chronic illness, and dating a type 1 diabetic, health anxiety and death take up more of my emotional bandwidth than they should. I also had an injury a year into the pandemic. I injured my knee while running, was off it for 2 months, then had surgery and a long rehab process that included an 8-month period of non-rehab, when I quit the first place out of frustration without having another one lined up. The experience has made me question what I’ll be able to do again, what peak performance will look like from here on out. I remember in one of my post-op visits, my surgeon asked what kinds of physical feats I’d like to accomplish after surgery. “Of course, walking, but is there anything else?” “My god, there’s everything else,” I thought. There’s running and jumping and hiking and biking and snowboarding and weightlifting. I planned to return to my former glory, but the very geriatric-sounding question made me question the chances that I’d regain the ability to do any of those things. Hence, an internally perceived age that is far, far too old.

I’ve since course corrected this with the help of my physical therapist, who assures me I’ll be able to do whatever I want once I rebuild muscles, and as long as I pre-hab moving forward (sort of a nod to the geriatric, but a way of saying, “you’re a long way off, pal”).

Feeling my age is something I think will put me in closer touch with myself along my journey to being a good man. One can only hope.