I’m in New York City now, at Tommy Wray’s place with Ken and John and some other people. I guess I’m going out tonight somewhere but I don’t know where and I don’t know if I’ll enjoy myself. Ever since I found out on Tuesday that I’m HIV+, I’ve been adjusting to the news mostly by trying to deal with my inevitable early death, and all the pain I will feel in the years before it.
I cried on the bus on my way down here, thinking about the pain the illnesses I will experience will bring with them. I’m terrified of the pain that comes with getting sick and with attempting to accept my own death. All this while I’m still a teenager.
I also fear my own suicide. I wonder sometimes if I will kill myself if I ever reach the point where I am no longer afraid of death, so that I can escape the pain. Then there is a part of me that anticipates this approaching pain and all the magnificent things which come with it, like sensitivity, awareness, acceptance, and an inner peace.
I like to think of those good things, and when I do, I feel lucky that I met this virus. I don’t tell anybody that because they’d probably think I was morbid, so it’s enough to think it to myself.
Today Ken and I walked through the streets of Greenwich Village. We saw Marci from “Married with Children” filming some kind of commercial and we went into the Stonewall Bar too. While standing on the street corner I saw a man with a large dark growth on the inner part of his arm. I thought it must be from the effects of AIDS and I got scared, envisioning my own body covered with these lesions. He had it on his arm but he still looked healthy and happy, so that gave me some hope for my own future. It’s nice how something as simple as seeing him smiling could lift up a total stranger. He never even noticed me as I watched him intently from a few feet away, and didn’t know I existed, but he had such an impact on me. First by scaring me, and then by making me feel good and hopeful again.
I think of Bruce having to deal with all of this too, with someone he loves so much going through this, and it makes me cry sometimes. I think of all the experiences we’ve had together, which may just become haunting memories if he proves to be HIV-. In a way, I want him to be positive just so I won’t be alone through this. We can experience it together which I think would be easier on us than if one of us lived a healthy long life while the other one withers away into death. But even though that thought pops up in my mind occasionally, I know that I could never live with myself if I passed this virus on to Bruce or to anyone, so I will make sure I never do, for however long I live. This is something that was violently inflicted upon me, and I will be sure to keep it to myself until I die.
