Something Personal.......................................................Page 3

My sisters and brother are all still here -- and that is important to each of us.  We had a fun and sometimes raucous reunion two years ago when we were all in our forties together for a few weeks, just as we were all in our twenties together at my kid sister's wedding two decades before.  Among them I have four beautiful nieces and one handsome nephew, all growing up way too fast.  

ME 1979 -1988:

With some difficulty in the transition, I came out in my late twenties as a Gay man, and have seldom looked back with regret, despite the supreme bad timing for a young man opening up to sexual adventures.  I felt whole for the first time in my life and that sense of completeness held forth through the extreme highs and nightmarish lows of the life of a gay man in San Francisco in the 1980's.  I have long looked upon this as having been at ground zero of a slow-burn nuclear explosion that is still mushrooming up and out over the urban cape.

I am a longtime survivor with  HIV --  nearly two decades now (20-20 hindsight being what it is).  It has been and continues to be tough, but I am still here.  Why?  I consider the following:  good luck, lucky genes, increasing moderation in my lifestyle, something to do with having severe allergies, a disciplined attitude toward my health care and medications, finding new reasons all of the time to continue living, and that I am not ready to die and have too much I want to do.  As equally difficult as have been my own challenges, has been watching the very vast majority of my friends and acquaintances die from this plague, mostly early on in the epidemic.  

Something Personal 2000

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