Eat, Pray, Love Response and a very long night

I want to start this blog with my personal promised response to the movie "Eat, Pray, Love'.  I  walked away from this incredible movie with this very simple realization, that one my biggest life obstacles is that I have not been able to forgive myself.  You may ask, forgive yourself of what?  This may some crazy to some of you but there is a very short list of things that I feel I need to forgive myself  of.

1.  I need to forgive myself that I made some major wrong decisions that led to my becoming HIV positive.  I know by saying that, that I have opened the very inner workings of my soul to all of you my readers.  That this admission leaves me very vulenerable.  I was after Michael died, and I was 22, in a very physically, emotionally, physically and sexually abusive relationship taht lasted ten months.  At one point I was locked and barricaded into a broom closet for four dayswith nothing.  That kind of abuse leaves you believeing the lies you are told about yourself.  For me it also left me needing to prove to myself I was not only attractive but also needed, and loved even if it was just for that brief moment of being in another's arms.  It left me thelowest I have ever been.

2.  This one I feel is much bigger than the previous one and that is forgiving myself that I have simply have survived when nearly all of my HIV positive friends have not.  Death in itself is something none of us can escape, everyone sooner or later does it.  Death also though takes something from those of us who suffer the loss of someone near to us.  Multiply that feeling  by hundreds and you can begin to understand how devasted and empty it leaves you.  You can begin to see how survivors guilt begins.  I am not saying I want to die, I am saying that for me it has been difficult understanding why I haven't and than trying to figure out the purpose I need to accomplish.

This is my response to "Eat, Pray, Love" that I need to forgive themost important person in my life, me!  By forgiving myself I can fully be my authentic self.

Last night was a very long night as I spent it at Mercy Hospital Emergency Room with another round of Kidney stones in the nearly 20 year sof living with AIDS I have had kidney stones now19 times.  all medication related and somehow I have passed them all.   Wearrivedat 10:30 p.m. last night and finally got home at 6 a.m. What a night!  A brand new medication for the pain and a contact to see a new doctor and I say this because I hoping you all will join me in praying tha I pass it before the end of the month when school starts.  Well until next time, I am so glad we had this time together.

A Difficult Post for a Difficult and Awkward Night

This is going to be the most difficult post that I have done in this blog to date.  It deals with so many different issues that have permeated my entire life, I am not even sure if I could accurately capture everything I want to try to say or need to say so the weight of these circumstances are conveyed accurately.

July 31st came and went in my personal life quietly enough, that date is my parents wedding anniversary.  I know you are already wondering how on earth this becomes my most difficult post.  Well my parents have married for 45 years and quiet frankly they never should have never been married that long in the first place.

I am sure somewhere along the way they really loved each other, even cared deeply for each other.  From what I remember of that period of most of my childhood is the mental, emotional and verbal abuse that my father used all of us, but primarily on my mother.  The majority of my childhood and early adult life I feared my father more than anything else, the real monster in the closet.  There were points where my mother temporarily left my father and we were placed in a "safe place" only to go back into that environment.  She has always felt she never had any way out.  She felt she couldn't support us on her own, and we will never know for sure if she could or not.  That process repeated itself over and over at least four times.

Earlier today my mother called wanting to get together for dinner to "celebrate" their anniversary so we said yes, what else was I suppose to do?  Most of me sat there vividly remembering that painful past, that seems like just like yesterday.  I wonder has the dynamic changed, now that my parents are older and in very ill health.  I wonder if my mother has forgiven him?  I wonder if my mother regrets staying all these years?  I wonder does the past ever cross either of their minds?  I wonder does any of it matter now to either of them?

Its hard trying sitting on your emotions while eating supper.  Its hard finding an anniversary card that isn't all romance, flowers and rainbows.  Well I did both things, I sat smiling, making small talk one more time and now I sit and blog about it, emotionally a wreck.  Maybe, I will revisit these ideas and this post in a few days and go more into emotionally what all of this means to me.

Until then I am so glad I am so glad we had this time together.

How To Train a Dragon----

Today my brother, my nephew and myself went to see "How To Train A Dragon".  While many of you may feel that this cartoon/kiddie flick isn't to be about life lessons for me I left the theatre changed. The story is basically about this boy who does not fit into his life as a viking and in the beginning would do anything just to fit in.  In the mean time he snags a dragon in a net who falls deep into the woods.

The dragon has part of his tail that is missing.  The part missing helps him fly.  The boy "Hiccup" befriends the dragon and in the process realizes that eveything his people knows about dragons is false.  The boy also builds an "artifical limb" if you will for this dragon to help him fly and together they do fly to unbelievable dizzing heights.

Of course his classmate in dragon training finds out about his secret and he persuades her to his side.  The dragon takes them to what is the Dragon's hive and this monsterous dragon rules the lives of every other dragon.  Hiccup's father figures this all and an all out war against the dragons pursue which they win because Hiccup destroys the monster.

Life is turned inside out and upside down because the dragons end up living with the vikings and his father ends up saying he not only loves Hiccup but his proud of him.

For me there was this huge underlying story of this boy trying to desperately fit in beyond all costs but yet changes his world because he finally embraces his differences and who he really is.  My life it seems in reverse to a degree.  Instead of trying to fit in desperately I have worked my entire life to be who I know I am-- a gay man who loves to design clothing.  Instead of trying to change the lives of everyone around him I am just trying to change mine and be who I was meant to be.  True I feel like I never fit in or where I am from but life is more than those things.

Leaving behind a world of poverty, indifference and "settle-ness".  You know that feeling of it gets no better than this so why try, just be happy with what you have.  I have never been like that,  I have just needed the opportunity to soar if you will.  I left the theatre in tears, my heart ripped from my chest and an emotional mess.  Knowing my father will never say those words to me because I am turning my world upside down, inside out on my own just for me but also knowing I don't need him to say those things to me.

This journey is just beginning in many ways and I have finally embraced what I want,what the future holds is uncertain but I am so excited.  If you get the chance go see this movie.