The Archives - 2000 Miracles

With World AIDS Day this Saturday, I've decided to go through my old blog and pull some of the entries about HIV from then and post them here each day. AIDS/LifeCycle has a goal to reach $1.5 million by Saturday and maybe some of that will come through new sponsors for my ride.

So in honor of this year's World AIDS Day and representing just a portion of the 31 years HIV & AIDS have affected our lives, here are more reasons I ride. Reasons I composed before the name AIDS/LifeCycle existed. Things have changed in the past dozen years - my attitude, my outlook, and even the lines on my face! For you regular blog readers, you'll get a peek into how my writing has evolved over the years too, hah!



December 31, 1999

See that date there? Yep, my thirties
were still on the horizon ;)

2000 Miracles
Today is a special day. Well, of course it is...it's the last day of a year, the final hours of a century, and the ending moment of a millennium. For many people today signifies a time for reflection, a few moments for remembering the past, and the last chance to make right the wrongs of the year. Tomorrow brings thoughts of change, fresh seedlings of hope, strong waves of motivation and new found freedoms. It means all of these things for me too...but it has another, more significant meaning.

I heard the words on November 27, 1991. I found out I was HIV-positive. 1991...we'd known AIDS for about 11 years, it was still a gay man's disease, Presidents still didn't speak about it, and families still hid it. 1991...AZT was the only hope and people were still dying by the thousands. 1991...I was 21 years old.

Three things went through my head when I was given my test results: "I'm too young for this," "I can never have children now," and "I'm not going to see the year 2000." I don't know why those are the first things I thought, they just popped into my head. Now here I am eight years later and I'm proving at least one of those thoughts wrong.

J.D. just a month after he joined my family!
(Also, look at the time....I used to be a nightowl!)

Tonight I'm going to celebrate life...not yours, not that of my friends, not the life of great people in history or of the human race. I'm going to celebrate my life. There I go being selfish again but damn I feel I deserve it. For over eight years I've lived with the thought of death looming over my head and for once I feel I can let go of it. Tonight is the night. I'm going to celebrate the moments I laughed, the moments I cried, the moments I was bored senseless and the moments I was a complete asshole. I'll look back on everything I've done with no regrets, knowing I've done the best I could with the tools I've been given...and sometimes even created my own tools. When the clock strikes midnight, I will kiss every person that has entered my life, whether they're still in my life or not.

Tomorrow won't be just another day. It is the day I thought I'd never see. My tomorrow will be the first tomorrow I've looked at without fear. For me, the year 2000 is a miracle...and only the first of many more to come.

j-