Middle Age

I turned sixty years old this year. Sixty, and 24 of those years I spent living with HIV. I understand that this is a different age in the process of the disease and that it is now considered, like diabetes, a chronic yet manageable disease and I am, believe me, relieved and grateful about that. Twenty four years ago this was not the case. When I was diagnosed, AZT had just been approved by the FDA. It was the first, and at the time, only treatment known and it was considered toxic, meaning that the cure could kill you faster than the disease. My mother, God bless her, schlepped me around to every support group known to Chicago and eventually ended up at ACT-UP where I learned how to get arrested properly during the upcoming protest to promote awareness of HIV/AIDS. Needless to say Mom freaked, she really did not want met to get arrested and have my face splashed on the evening news. So, she put her nose to the proverbial grindstone and took on the task of finding a cure or at least some kind of action against this thing that didn't involve getting arrested while while sitting on my ass, holding a sign and hollering mean things about the President of the United States. (she didn't seem to mind the idea so much when I was protesting the Vietnam war) I mean lets face it, the awareness thing wasn't working out for her under these circumstances. I remember listening to her on the phone one day, talking to Dr. Jonas Salk. I mean shut up!, she not only got through to Dr. Salk himself but was encouraging him to continue his quest for a cure and telling him to hurry up about it, we didn't seem to have a whole lifetime to wait around. It was an awful, uncertain, scary time for her and of course for me. I lived for some time, waiting for my cue to die which I supposed would be of an opportunistic disease such as PCP which my husband had recently died of. So I was eating healthy (aw Maaaaa!!), taking tranquilizers and living in a haze, on the cloud of 'This Cannot Be Happening To ME!!!!' Consequently, I missed a very important period in the process of my mental and emotional development. Middle Age. Yeah, ok I know this sounds funny. No one looks forward to middle age, it doesn't have a great reputation and in the middle thirties it's way to close for comfort. But worse, believe me, I know what I'm talking about, is waking up at fifty and realizing you missed it. Totally missed it! What happened to those 'last chance' years in which you really want to grow your hair long one more time, travel with a girlfriend,have fun being relatively young. Most important, pay attention to every little second of your child's, well, childhood, his middle years, his adolescence Oh I was there, I remember it, I appreciate it, but I will always feel that I, and therefore he, missed a big chunk of the living it. The carefree chunk when he gets to live without that nagging feeling, deep down, that something is just not right not only in the world but with his mother. Don't get me wrong, I was a great mother, I appreciated every little bit of grace that came my way and his. I moved in with my parents and that was great, they were wonderful to us. They dove into my sons life and became his 'nuclear' family. They got him ready for school, read to him every night and listened to and nurtured him while I managed to get my degree and go to work. And while I bumped into walls, my own emotional ones and literally the drywall in the house. I don't regret a minute of my life with my parents, sharing my sons great years and nurturing the memory of his father so that one day, when he figured this all out, he would not have bad feelings toward the man who had given him life and I swear to God,I never once referred to as a sperm donor. I didn't have much of a social life and pretty much respected my parents in what seemed to be there wish that one must know what happened, what I had, and that I really didn't have that much in common with the gay guys I ran with but this was my experimentation with being a Hag and why not? My husband was dead and at my age.....But in the meantime regardless of how it appeared to the world at large, much was lost and when I give into the urge to think about me, what I went through, and what I lost, I was sad. But back to the old, 'jeez, I'm fifty, how the fuck did that happen and where did my life go?' I am brought right back to feelings that I lost middle age. And it was time to move on and deal with that deprivation. Sometime in my late forties, it was determined that, what my father had suspected all along, was true and that I am one of the ten percent of people living with HIV in which the virus does not progress and I should, God and this crazy world willing, live a long and normal (yes Ilene and Jan and all my dear girlfriends, I did say normal and yes I can hear you laughing your heads off)life. But as hard as I tend to avoid the idea, there's no getting away from the fact that there is a virus running around my body and stopping occasionally to say 'hey you, remember me, I'm still here and I'm going to fuck with you a little bit because I CAN! When that happens I will notice a big red spot on my shoulder or something else really benign or, and this did happen once, my blood platelets take a dive so deep that I'm in danger of bleeding to death. I suppose the Drs. explanation for that kind of thing would have been something like, "gee we're not sure what the problem was but she did have HIV for 20 something years." But now I'm alive and sometime in the last ten years forgot to cut my hair. No honestly, I did. People do say to me, some incessantly, Louisa, why don't you cut your hair, you're sixty years old, it's time. But I don't think it's a big deal. I wear my graying hair up in a wrapped around pony and I don't feel like I'm an old lady pretending to be young. And guess what? With my hair up and looking like my grandma's used to, I get to show off the tattoo on the back of my neck. And people, I'll admit usually ones under thirty, think that the Claddagh stamped on the back of my neck is so cool and I agree, it is cool. Maybe it's a little immature but at least it's not on my lower back between my butt crack and my quickly vanishing waist. And to be honest, the blue outline of that tattoo matches perfectly the blue Saphire stud in my nose, so ya see? It's all good. So, in conclusion, now I'm a sort of aged lady (as in fine wine) with gray hair well under my bra strap but above my waist, a tattoo on my neck and a ring in my nose. Would I have done these things in my late thirties or early forties, were I lucky enough to have a relatively normal life? Had I had an uneventful middle age (I just can't let go of that can I)? I can, in all honesty say that before the shit hit the fan, though I was having a pretty good life, I was a little nuts anyway, and I don't think that anyone who knew me back then, would tell you any different. All in all at the end of the day I am healthy as a horse, I have a wonderful son, a wonderful husband, loving friends who save my sanity on a daily basis, and an appreciation of life that's just awesome. Oh and a gorgeous head of hair, that doesn't quite match my chronological age, along with said nose ring and tattoo, but so what? I can't get arrested. Or haven't so far. We shall see what happens in the next decade, if I decide to grow up or grow old. Right now I am open to the possibility of both. This blog is dedicated to Monika, whose memory is a constant reminder that I was loved in the sweetest, most non-judgmental and purest way I ever could have hoped for.