Full Blown God
Posted by billyminsh, Jan 11 2009, 10:44 PM
This was the first published blog/column I wrote, 10/08. It appeared on Lifelube ,the blog and in Gay Chicago. I realized it should appear here as well.
"Give me life, give me pain, give me my Self again..."
- Tori Amos, "Little Earthquakes".
The Concorde had just crashed and Lance Armstrong had, once again, won the Tour de France. Though maybe not in that order, these are among the events I remember while the jury was out on whether I would live or die.
After two months of wasting from a parasite, I had 10 t-cells and a viral load that exceeded 750,000. Conventional wisdom: I was a dead man at 25. However, conventional wisdom and what we see with our eyes can be deceiving. Whether this idea is popular or not, we do not get to say when we make our “big exit”.
I never truly thought that I believed in anything greater than myself. That is God, the Universe, or whatever pronoun humans have to put on it. But for me, it is God. I know it beyond a shadow of a doubt. Even belief in the Big Bang theory recognizes that a force greater than us caused this “bang”. Atheists too, believe that they do not believe.
I was hospitalized. I weighed 127 pounds. I had to have a blood transfusion after becoming anemic. I was started on HAART therapy after resisting treatment for years. One of the drugs I took is known to cause vivid dreams. In my state of illness, these dreams became very much reality, as I knew it.
I began to speak at the speed of sound. I couldn’t get my words out fast enough. I couldn’t divulge enough personal information, or confess, fast enough. I was fortunate to be surrounded by loyal friends and family. They had come and called to say goodbye.
My dreams intensified. The line between dreams and reality became blurred, at best. I was eating stuffed pizza out of a big rubber garbage can with Ernest Borgnine. We were in the dugout at Wrigley field during the World Series. I am not a baseball fan, and I don’t feel one way or the other about Ernest Borgnine. I believe this occurred some time between the time when I thought “The Brady Bunch” was talking to me and when I was traveling toward the much discussed “light” with the victims of the Concorde crash. It seemed I was trying to cut in line. The departed passengers didn’t much care for that so I was held back. Maybe it was then when I opened my eyes and saw “The View” with Star Jones telling me to wash my feet. I heard the approaching sound of wings flapping, only to crescendo, crushing and crashing through my hospital window culminating in thousands of voices and the feeling that hands were all over me.
At some point, a vision of celestial telephone operators hung above my head. If you can, picture thousands of compassionate Ernestine’s, made famous by Lily Tomlin. I was eventually connected to someone I believed to be Jesus. He sounded very surfer lackadaisical and much less authoritative than I would have imagined. I don’t think he thought this was very funny because when I asked him about this, he said that he sounded however I needed him to. We were quickly cut off.
It would be two months before these effects would completely subside. I was sent home and put on disability. I wrote poetry and read. I took my smorgasboard of new medications and, after several months, even became undetectable with 300+ t-cells.
This was nine years ago. I am now an Education Coordinator at Test Positive Aware Network, an organization that helped me at that time, and continues to do so. I am healthy. I am not manic. I believe in God, but God as love. Some of what I experienced I will probably never share. Had I been compliant with my meds, I would have never got to that point. I don’t regret it. However, I would never wish that experience on anyone else.
Taunted
Posted by billyminsh, Dec 16 2008, 10:08 PM
"My name Isabel...married to myself...my love Isabel...living by myself..."
-Bjork, "Isabel".
When I was 21, I was diagnosed HIV positive. I was in college in Chicago, far from home which was Wichita, Kansas. It was summer, and I was nearing my third year of college. I was told I was positive by the panicked, screeching voice of a medical receptionist. Her tone was oh-so eloquent as she shrilly insisted that I get back to the doctor RIGHT AWAY!!! This message was left on the answering machine I was sharing with my three roomates.
Once confirmed, I was at a loss. I phoned my aunt who purchased a plane ticket for me to return home so I could tell my mother and grandma face to face. My aunt and I have always been close, more like siblings. Once I had returned, I also had to tell my dad and stepmom in person. When I arrived at their house, my stepmom demanded to know what was going on. I didn't really like her much, so my response was indignant.
"I'm married," I stated.
"To WHAT?" she replied.
My dad was on the sidelines, as usual, eating a ham sandwich as he leaned against the pool table.
He suddenly blurted out, "You got AIDS."
This was a moment I had forgotten, or repressed, until recently. With Proposition 8 and the gay marriage controversy that continues to plague the community, this story surfaced with the recollection of responding to my stepmom with a lyric from a song. A song I knew she'd never heard. It was a knee-jerk reaction to such a childish, taunting response from her. Had I said that to her now, I begin to wonder what her response would be. I believe that Ignorance has made a deal with Time. Ignorance has been a comfort for most people through the ages. Which leads me to believe that she would say the same thing to me today.
Reflecting on the reactions of the players in this story, something strikes me. To the outside world, my dad and stepmom are labeled liberals. They always vote democratic though they attend a conservative church. On the flip side, my aunt, who held my secret from my family for 2 weeks waiting for me to return home is labeled a conservative evangelical. My grandma, a Catholic raised in World War II Germany, was always my greatest champion. It was these 2 women who held me and cried with me as I brought them this news. The "bleeding heart liberals", form of dad and stepmom, were anything but. Their comments were thoughtless and cold.
Upon telling my mother, she also cried. Labeled free-spirited, she taught me all about Astrology. She also voted for Ronald Reagan twice. Once she pulled herself together, she informed me that she and my stepdad were moving to Florida. She informed me that unless I went with her, she would not help me financially.
Labels fascinate me. Religion fascinates me. The very thing all faiths and all good sense tells us not to do, we do anyway. We judge. I don't think humans can help it, but when we judge we become victims of Ignorance. Ignorance can lead to Fear, which replicates like a plague and we can second guess ourselves. We can become so blind from Fear that we will revoke a hard-earned civil right. After all, it is one thing to have fought and lost, but to have fought and won and THEN have this right revoked is simple Cruelty. It is as if the schoolyard bully has taunted a mass of people, dangling their rights over their heads like a carrot on a stick. I guess we all forgot to scream "No take-backs!" in a timely manner.
Is gay marriage really necessary. Let's take out the "gay" part of THAT label. Is marriage really necessary? Some believe it is. Do I? Not really. But, that is what I believe. That is MY stuff, my inability to fathom that kind of comittment, not to mention that I have already been married and divorced. I come from divorced parents. I have only seen a handful of marriages in my life that truly work. But, again, that is my perspective, my view, my label of what marriage is. Does that give anyone else the right to begrudge a couple what they believe to be a natural progression in their relationship? Think about it. I'm a gay man who married a woman who I didn't love, and I did it legally. Vegas style and all. What does that say? Does it really say that Judgment Day is upon us and that our society holds nothing sacred? If that's your belief than it doesn't matter who you think you are, you can't stop that no matter how hard you lobby, no matter how hard you pray.
Beneath the surface, we all transcend labels. Beneath the collective desire to refer to God as male, the Creator can never really bear a finite noun. The need to love and be loved, however, I believe is infinite. Whether one agrees with the shape that love takes for some of us, shouldn't matter. Whether we want to label it marriage shouldn't make a difference.
My stepmom tried to belittle me that day. Behaving like a merciless brat, ignoring my vulnerability. Is what is happening in California any different? To thoughtlessly tear one down in the interest of someone else's agenda is not Biblical, as some may ask us to believe. It is criminal.