Free Life

Went to the movies today. I shouldn't have because payday's next week and there's insurance to still pay. But I went and had a big ol' cry there due to the movie not necessarily because I was/am terribly sad or anything like that. Still, right? Anyway, afterward, I spent another $5 on a coffee and a shortbread raspberry cookie thing because I left a voicemail for my best friend and was still a little shaken. So strange how things affect me. Or not. I think I'm made of metal and then I'm melted.

Honest: for a long time - almost two years now - I've had a terrible idea not everyone I know and don't know would like to hear and that is going of the meds for the extra cash.

Just right now I was thinking, suppose I'd never had to go to the doctor four years ago and I never discovered I'd HIV, where would I be now? I don't know and neither does anyone else because that never happened. But, what if, you know?

I wonder how we got to this point where this is even worth considering. Years ago, if someone mentioned this to me, I'd tell them they were insane, and here I am thinking this. But is it that bad? No, not really. I could use five grand right now and I know lots of us could as well but that isn't going to happen. or, if I did indeed stop the the meds for the money, I think it would be easier to just spend it on something wholly necessary.

The family is in really bad form right now. Not only financially. Not a lot of us are happy. I'd go even a little further into it: I don't think a lot of us are content or satisfied with what's happening, any of it. Who is, really?

So, I'm at the movies and guy in the movie says he just wants it to stop, the disease he has. And that's where I am and I think using the family trials as the reason for it to stop is kind of a cop-out. Isn't it? Is it?

What if I decided to stop treatment, would you hate me, shun me, support me, or say nothing? Is this one of those cry for help things? Do I mean a slow-speed suicide? What is it?

As I've written many times over the last few years, I want it to stop, all these pills every week; the way in which everything my family says around me is tinged with sadness and fear; the way in which whenever I mention being sick all I get is silence; thinking the pretty girl I want to ask out from work will just walk away when I tell her; the way my mother looks at me sometimes. And the way I see myself daily. I just want it all to stop so I can be normal again.

Haven't had a fit like this in a while. I don't really know what normal means.

But, as I said, there's lots of things to take care of for the family. I hate my living situation but without me they can't keep the house nor put food on the table nor even enjoy a smoke every now and then. Silly to even type all that. But it's true. And me, without them, I don't know really where I'd be. So the family must come first. And I'd be no use to them dying in a hospital or dead in the ground.

Way the world works is my life is the only thing I've a say over. That's it.

Way to return to the blog. I should not be allowed to go to the movies unescorted.

The Maiden

My mother asked me the other day why I still have all my med bottles. She asked me why I don't just throw them out and I told her that I just wanted to hang on to them. Kind of like a timeline, I said, but I don't think she cared for that very much because she looked at me like I wasn't speaking Spanish. My father then said that I need to look at it from their point of view, and I asked what that was, and neither one of them said anything, but my mother, finally, said she didn't like it.

A few days ago, I was telling Jodi this little bit and she interrupted my telling to ask why was I keeping them. I said they were just like little mementos of the years since my diagnosis. And as I thought about it a bit more, I came up with something a little more sinister: once I was gone, these little plastic bottles would remain. All the chemical fighting, and I'd be dead and I'd leave behind lots of plastic. I said to Jodi that once I was gone, they're what would stay behind. I'm not certain what she said in response but it wasn't anything fully enthusiastic. That I do recall.

I'd also divined my parents' point of view: I'm going to die. These little bits are yet another grand reminder to them, I suppose, and to my friend, that I'm sick. Good thing too because I'd forgotten.

I don't want to turn it into a big thing but my question will always be (until it isn't fact, I suppose) is why is it that the ones who care about me the most seem to be the ones who remind me that I'm unwell? I'm not stupid, I know why, but at the same time, I wish they'd stop it. Because I don't really dwell on it as much as I think they do. I think about it from time to time sure, but what I thought would be a little eccentric way of looking at my being sick has suddenly turned into my building my proverbial coffin. The even more curious thing in regard to my family is how ever-present a specter looms over me. I know why they might think about this, but I wonder why it isn't enough for me to say I'm just doing this for the sake of doing it, it has no further meaning. It is they who add some sort of gray cloud over it. And at this point, I know there isn't anything that I can do to stop them from feeling so.

And it keeps happening.

It's rather frustrating.

It's so strange that from the very beginning everyone I know has said that my being sick isn't 'the end' and that I will still live a 'normal' life. If this is true (it isn't so let's cut THAT bullshit out right now, yes?), then stop being the reminders that I won't. How selfish am I?

Alright, I know these folk's reasons for talking to me in this manner are entirely legit and valid, because all feelings are valid. Even I know this. If this is what they think, I wonder why they won't talk to me about it when I actually ask. Why aren't we allowed to discuss these gloom-doom scenarios that everyone seems to already have, including me? Frankly, perhaps before, the boy was right and I ought to outright ask what everyone what they think about my being sick whenever these things happen. I mean, it sounds a little heavy-handed in way, but at the same time, I wish at all times my folks, my best friend, my friends saw me as me first and never ever this fucking disease.

Choice

Here I am.

There's a bit to be said for going into things half-cocked, you know. Probably, most of what can be said isn't very good because jumping in the water without knowing how deep it is could lead to brain smashing results. Anyway.

It's been difficult. It is difficult. All these things that are happening right now and the things that are not happening. Said to my brothers the other day how it is the first time in our lives that we're finding ourselves more alike than ever...in dramatically despairing ways. We kind of laughed about it for a moment. Before, last week or the week before, the entire family is having lunch and we're talking about my niece's schooling and we're talking about the paradoxism of parents telling kids to not do what they did even though they came out better people for it. We're talking travel and we're talking going back to school (my sister-in-law is currently in a Master's Program) and having kids (new nephew, exactly twenty-three days old today). We're this little group of people who, when the water's not been deep enough, has been there for each other. For me. And I look around at these people I love and wonder who can we, collectively, turn to now? There is no one you see. And I'm talking about pragmatism, because that's an out right now that none of us seem to have.

Neither of my brothers and I have been able to find work. For whichever reasons there may be, it's come to the point where, personally, I'm having a lot of difficulty thinking about anything but and feeling, not lost, but a huge sense of weight, you know. My father has three more weeks worth of work. There are two kids in my immediate family, my mother and I are in treatment for our respective illnesses. This is what I think about a lot. It's what's making me worry a lot. Literally, it's what's keeping me up at night.

Corey and I were talking before and we said how despite my own take on it, I do very much feel like part of what makes me me is that I feel the responsibility of being able to provide not for myself but for him, for my family. For everyone. And it's affects me when I can't. It really does. Noble or not, just or not, courageous or not, it's fucking driving me insane.

And it's making me very sad.

I don't want to rant on and on about these weirdly socio-econimic structures we're in, the plight of the poor, the battles of the middle class, our constant consumerist culture, the irrelevance of bits of the private/public sector.

When I left Las Vegas five years ago this coming weekend, things were dismal and low and shattered in very many places. And the cliche of history repeating isn't far from my mind, and just like then, doing something about takes so much damned time. It does. It's not the lack of doing or the lack of focus or the lack of attention. That's what gets me a little powered for something. It's the waiting, this interim, this space that makes it all seem overwhelming and very stressful and very, very terrible. And, honest, this interim, as terrible as it feels sometimes, I don't know that it's not entirely deserved, you know.

I've never been one to cast off blame to anyone or anything when something bad occurs to me because these things happen because of what I do or don't do, and blaming anyone and anything else other than myself is total bullshit. But my problem is I'm harder on myself than anyone else. I guess that applies to most of us, doesn't it?

So, I've spent the last few hours imagining how I'm going to tackle this upcoming week and after a quick talk with Corey the other night, and joking a bit with my two brothers earlier, perhaps it doesn't need to be so difficult. What's upcoming? Choice.

Fate

As I'm typing this, I should be changing clothes and I got a text message saying, "p.s. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!" from Corey.

Today, I turned thirty-three years old. And I think and I wonder what's the big deal with me? Why's it that even a birthday is more problematic for me than it need be? Of course, it's not always about me, so I just need to get over it.

Thirty-two was very impressive. I'm not prone to thinking about fate or destiny in any way, but, as I said to Corey on new year's day, perhaps the preceding year needed to happen the way it did because I learned so much from it. It hurt me and it loved me unlike anything ever before. It isn't hyperbole. I can look back and see various instances where I got a chance to show all my little cracks everywhere and be adored for it; I allowed myself to not be a piece of sharp metal all the time. My family and I, this year was very precarious and I'm glad well all came out of it relatively unscathed. And, for me, thirty-two showed me what I'm missing in my life.

Spent a lot of time with the best friend from the very beginning. Probably the most in nearly five years since I left Las Vegas. And as it's worked out, she was my foil through this last year. I don't know if she knows it, but with her reflecting what's good and right and appropriate at various points, I could see nearly every single time that what I did and said or not had value or had value taken away. I hardly ever see things in these terms. Because, mostly, I see life as a series of unconnected events I get the chance to wade through. And I still believe this. But just because I go through these experiences and see these people, I have a say in how it will all turn out.

Some things just are. But not everything can be left up to chance.

Golden and I would say often how we should be more punk rock about life and take chances. She and I exchange this little bit of wisdom, and I, for one, didn't stick to it. And now that thirty-three is here to stay, I'm reminded of something else I wrote late last year (which I deleted because I'm done with those histrionics).

I'm not going to foretell this year, but what I've seen so far of it, I love. Truly. Because already I'm just walking through a series of events and letting them happen to me. I'm exacting some of it. Big shock: it's better. Some things just are, true. Others do mean a lot more than anticipated. And yet, others cannot just be left alone. What I see for myself as far as I can taste is a wonderful man in my life, a family that's suffered (and still is) but who still remains united, my best friend making me grow more than I think she even knows, a job that's actually enjoyable and could take me places.

I'm rambling.

Thanks to my family and Golden and Corey, thirty-two was infuriatingly necessary. Thirty-three, because of all of them, will be extraordinary. Might even call it fate.