JKINATL2 – Jonathan’s Place

Turn around Bright eyes

I am forty three years old tomorrow

Which in and of itself is not a bigger or lessor deal than it is with anyone. Except by all that’s written in medical stone, I should not be here. Not be here to celebrate it, nor mourn the passage of so many year, waiting for a death that has yet to materialize.

Odd feelings, those. Hard to reconcile.

I remember thirteen years ago, reading the gay rags, and noting how the weekly and monthly ads and articles were squished beneath the oppressive obituaries. Hoe many weeks, many years, the obituraries overwhelmed the articles and the iteneraries by a margin of four to one. How the rags, once a vehicle of gay planning, had become a measure of loss, of collective mourning and remembrance. Things far too evolved for the twenty-something I was when I was reading the magazines. Things that hurt on levels we were not, as a culture ready nor willing to embrace as a normative. Bt we printed the, often free of charge, for years. And I read them, as a horrified outsider for the longest time, then as a participant, waiting for my turn, my free obituary. My one positive affect for having been openly gay and openy out and willing to blindly trust in an era of suspicion and regret.

I waited and waited.

And the protease inhibitors came out, and I took some. And took some more, later. And threw up for a few years, then took more. And finally waited until better drugs came out, and brought myself back from the edge of that abyss and decided to try, finally.

And now, here I am. Emotionally stunted at the age of twenty nine. Physically forty three, and probably far more aged than that, on a molecular level. And for the life of me, I do not know where to go from here.

As a gay guy, I am a powderkeg. I am a viral menace, though my viral load is thankfully minimized thanks to drugs and my adherence to same. I am a liability to relationships, though I have outlived and outlasted the last two long tern ones that seem to have been based on my own demise as a platform.

I seem to have outlived my welcome sometimes. I have certainly outlived my experiences and my ability to predict the future. I am adrift now, at an age many would label as middle, in a portion of the lake of life I cannot navigate. I simply paddle form day to day, month to month, and hope that my psyche does not fall completely apart at the shallowest eddy. I freak out when insurance has a glitch, when the doctors or pharmacies fail to deliver the consistency that I cling to like a non-swimmer clings to a life raft.

I would love to know what to do,where I really am, who I need to be, and all those other questions that seem so elementary to other folks my age.

But here I am. Still alive. Still in the struggle. And in the world of dating and relationships, still living in a powder keg and giving off sparks. And I fear for those who love me. And for my own self. And for the future, which means not only finding my paddle and compass, but racing to catch up to those my age who have gone so much further.

I sit, sometimes without the capacity for movement. And I wonder how one gets through this, wonder how someone overcomes a death sentence and turns his life around. It takes great strength, that I know. But where… and to what end? I wish to hell I knew.

Tonight, on the eve of my birthday, I sit and wonder these things, and watch music vidoes from the past to imagine myself then, full of dreams and arrogant immortality. And I try to recapture that. That innocence, that lack of knowledge, that naïve self.

Where are the touch-stones for those who survive? Where are the maps for those who simply paddled on straightward onto the abyss, without fear of death because death was all we had in front of us?

Someone tell me. Because Bonnie Tyler cannot.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 at 3:31 am and is filed under Stuff that I wish were in a book. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.