Ramblings of An Aging Gay Guy

So about 2 months ago I went off of my HIV meds.  I had a lapse in insurance coverage and when my coverage was active I simply did not find the time to sit down and get on the phone to get my Stribild prescription moved over to the new specialty pharmacy.  Sadly, it takes a lot of phone calls to get started with a new insurance or pharmacy provider.  Most insurances will not let you pick up your HIV meds at your local CVS or Walgreens; the insurance companies prefer you to go through multiple layers of red tape to obtain your prescription.  I work full-time and, at the time, was in school full-time as well.  I was in school or at work from 8 AM until 8 PM Monday through Friday.  Long story short, I did not make the time to prioritize my health. About 3 weeks ago I began to get sick.  It started as a sneeze, a sore throat, and fatigue.  I chalked it up to bad allergies or a cold and figured I was fatigued because of the heavy school/work load ...

Do you ever wonder why it is we look at ourselves and our world in the way that we do?  I am not sure how or when I became a bitter, angry person.  It seems to correlate though that the worse I feel about myself then the worse I tend to view the world and those around me.  Nothing I do seems to be good or right or pleasurable or long-lasting.  Why is it this way? I can not remember when it was that I last felt good or happy.  I literally can't remember.  Everything feels so strained.  Everything feels like a root canal.  I am not sure I would even know where or how to feel good about life again.  I am not sure how I can get back to feeling good about myself again.  It seems like I am just circling the drain, waiting on that last gurgle before all the water is gone, rushing down the pipes toward the septic tank.  That is my life.  That is what my soul feels like.  Torture.  I feel so far outside of everything that I ...

I think I am having a string of bad luck lately and it is becoming too much to deal with.  I think it is because I have stretched myself too thin, working too many hours at work.  And yet I feel trapped, financially, because I have to work so much in order to pay for everything.  I have the house payment, the cell phone bill, electricity, tuition, food, everything.  I am overwhelmed in every area of my life and I do not see a way out.  If I work less then something goes unpaid.  Cell phones get turned off.  Tuition is late.  If I work too much then I fail at school because I have no time or energy or waking hours with which to study.  It is a no-win situation and I can't see how to fix everything.  I feel cornered or like a bear in one of those bear traps; I understand why animals gnaw off their leg to get out of such a trap.  When you are already in this much pain, gnawing off a part of you is nothing.  And bad things keep s...

I have had a lot of feelings pop up lately about a variety of things.  I am going through a time of many changes and I think they are all starting to get to me.  School begins again soon; I am leaving the job I have had for years because I am no longer valuable to them.  I am starting a new job and with that comes a certain amount of anxiety, especially since it is in a completely different field of work than what I have done for the last decade or so.  I will be making less money but I will have greater flexibility and less stress so that is a good trade-off.   Mostly what I am feeling is fear and worthlessness. And anger. Anger at homophobia, anger at racism, anger at injustice, anger at the president. I fear what the future will hold for all of us, both in the short-term and in the long-term. Every day at work I feel on display, I feel judged and hated and it wears on me. It is an environment where crass white heteronormative values are held up on...

So I have been thinking a lot lately about mortality, death, and what my death will be like.  Maybe it is a mid-life crisis, maybe it is because Mom will have been dead for 3 years come this Thursday.  Maybe it is because I see the cardiologist on that same mom-death-day, to explore an issue that has cropped up.  Maybe it is because it was an arrhythmia that began my mom's decline towards death all of those years ago.  Maybe it is because my biological father has had a heart attack awhile back.  I don't know what has caused this rumination that I find myself mired in.   Or is it maybe the situation we find ourselves in, with the country flipping a finger off to it's citizens when it comes to the future of healthcare.  The future seems uncertain on so many levels. I thought it was bad enough when I was diagnosed with HIV.  I thought HIV would be insurmountable and difficult.  When my diagnosis of HIV happened, I remember it being inconcei...

Tomorrow will mark one year since the shooting at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.  It will be one year ago that all of us in the LGBTQ community saw the direct result of an intersection between unchecked access to guns, mental illness, religion, and homophobia.  It was a year ago that all of us within the community felt a little piece of ourselves die. The shooting did not occur in a vacuum.  We live in a country that is supposedly great and awesome and better than all other countries.  At least that is what we are indoctrinated to believe as we grow up.  As a child I remember we used to say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning at the start of school. But that pledge is a lie told to everyone ever forced to say it... One Nation Under God We are NOT one nation.  We are a divided nation, both politically, socially, economically, and religiously.  There are elements within this country...the Religious Right, the Republicans....

So...I have deleted my Facebook account.  It was time.  It was a waste of time.  I received no benefit from it.  When I caught myself feeling worse and worse about myself every time I logged on then I knew Facebook needed to go away.  I even found myself getting upset when I would get very little likes, comments, or interactions from my posts.  Oh there were always a few of those interactions here and there, but overall I felt invisible.  Worse, I felt bad about myself for feeling invisible.  Then I was mad at myself for feeling that way.  In the end Facebook caused too many negative emotions inside me. It is funny, because it has been 24 hours since I deleted it and nobody has even noticed.  Nobody has reached out.  But that's ok.  Facebook is NOT life.  It is a fantasy, a billboard on which people advertise their half-truths and their bright, beautiful, perfect lives.  Instead, I have chosen to engage i...