Blue Sky

Last night, while on the phone with Golden, I needed to take one my meds, and did. And tried very hard to articulate to my best friend how I'd just had a little dispiriting moment. She said I better continue taking my meds and I tried to tell her that it wasn't that I wouldn't continue taking them, but that the fact that I had just then done it made me think, 'Shit, here we are, for life,' and she said I better. So, I tried again that it wasn't as if the medication was an option but that I was yet again reminded that I had to take them because it'll keep me a little safer for alittle while longer (Corey and I joke that they keep us alive (which is true but then I guess for someone who's not HIV/AIDS positive, they might think that's a fucked thing for anyone to say, but, hey it makes us laugh)), and my best friend just castigated me a bit that I better not consider stopping.

Sigh, right?

I've often wondered what goes on through my family's individual minds about me whenever this topic comes up, intentionally or not. I was on the phone with Golden, so I just verybalized what I thought, and I wonder if she did the same. Who really knows. Sometimes I just want to ask them straight out if they think I feel different physically, do they think I feel as if I'm ebbing away, are they constantly thinking that I'm dying, what do they see when they see me? Two years ago I began shaving my head, and my mother had a fucking fit over that because she and my father both said it reminded them I was sick. Now, so far removed, I call bullshit on that. At the time I didn't, but I did ask if they honestly thought that's what I looked like, a sick person. Neither really said so.

Yes, every so often I have pangs of, 'Man, I am seriously fucked and sick and shit,' and I feel bad about it for a moment but it passes more quickly than you'd think. Maybe feel bad is the wrong phrase. But for a brief moment, I'm taken back to three years ago and I'm thinking that I've this weird dark cloud over me that no one I love except for Corey really understand. The people in my life, how do you tell them that randomly, briefly, for just a moment, I realize I've a disease that could be killing me rightnowthisverysecond?

Sure, even a dark rain cloud passes over time, but mostly after it's left its mark on the rain-soaked ground.