Life Is Good

Last night was this month's Virginia Heart Circle at Doug M.'s home in Arlington. I met him at the Pentagon City metro station and we zipped back to his place to start putting things in order for the evening.

There were seven of us, including two men that I was meeting for the first time. I made the following comments during one of my turns with the talking stick:

I started this journal in June last year, after I met Doug B. (heterodoxy) at the CBE in May. I met a few of his friends at a game day, and realized that I really liked all of them -- sexy, smart, geeky guys. :-) They all had online journals too, like Doug, and they all kept up with each others doings -- like hanging over a virtual back fence to gossip.

I wanted to fit in with these guys, so I resolved to start a journal of my own.

Now, I had found out about my HIV in August of 2003. Late August, just before I was starting my fall semester at the Baltimore City Community College. I was taking four classes in the evenings after working in DC each day, so I'd commute into DC, work five hours, commute home, then go to school for up to five hours in the evening. It was rather grueling just making it everywhere on time. Thank goodness the academic standards were so low.

I broke up with Russell in January, and we started trying to figure out what our new relationship was going to look like.

What I'm trying to say is that in June 2004, I wasn't very far along in dealing with the HIV. I was put on meds almost immediately, so I learned to keep my regimen, and I did do some reading, buying a couple of books and looking up everything I could on the web, but I hadn't made a lot of progress in coming to grips with my infection.

So when it came time to name my journal, I thought a bit and decided to name it "Tainted Life," echoing the song "Tainted Love" but also conveying how I felt about my HIV, how it changed everything. I used to remark that it was as if I had been shunted sideways into a new world where everything looked the same, but nothing felt the same.

I've made a lot of progress over the past year, and I think this journal has had a lot to do with that. I managed to recapture moments where I walk down the street almost giggling just to be alive. Life is good. So I recently decided to rename my journal to reflect that attitude -- Life Is Good.

"Adversity introduces a man to himself"

Chris shared that quote last night at the heart circle, and I immediately tried to fix it in my memory so that I could note it here. I've done a brief google search, and I can't find anybody to attribute it to.

I guess that quote really rings true for me. I've learned a lot more about myself over the past year or so, what with the HIV, the school, new job, layoff, new job, money woes.

Maybe I'm in some kind of karmic Fear Factor episode. I'm confronting all kinds of fear about disease, money, insecurity, lonliness and finding them all to be phantoms. Mostly, anyway.

In other news, my boss gave me $100 today to tide me over until we can get a check from our client. This will keep me in Ho-Hos and Cinnamon Toast Crunch until then. :-)