The worst year of my life.

I found out I was HIV positive while I was in my first relationship. Of course, he denied cheating on me and I certainly hadn't cheated on him….so my mind ran wild ~ maybe I drank out of someone else's cup at some point. Maybe accidentally I picked up someone else's beer bottle while we were at a club. Yea, I was very naive. It wasn't until I saw a Doctor for the first time when he asked me how many partners I have had. When I told him I have only been with one, he looked at me surprised and asked me if he was the only man I had been with sexually. I said yes. He asked if I hadn't used any needles for drugs. No, I don't do drugs. Then he was the one who gave it to me, he so stonely said. I looked at him puzzled and told him I but I had asked my boyfriend if he had been with anyone else and had said no, he hadn't. The doctor looked straight at me and sternly said, "If you're telling me you have not had sex with any other men and you are not using needles, then he is lying to you. He is the one responsible for giving you HIV."

I felt as though a ton of bricks landed on me. I seriously thought I was going to die within the year. At the time, in my mind, HIV meant AIDS…and AIDS meant death. My ex and I broke up a couple of months later. He eventually said he had gotten tested at another clinic and turned out positive but then retracted weeks later stating it was a false positive and was actually negative. I had enough. I could no longer trust this man who was my first love, my first lover. He broke my heart. He shattered it along with my trust. It was a difficult break up. Eventhough I no longer trusted this man, I was afraid to be alone. Alone living with HIV and being an only child, telling my mom was the most difficult thing I ever had to do. There was a lot of crying and hugging involved. I felt my world as I knew it, had ended. Making my mom cry was heartbreaking for me.

Eventually I was rommates with my friend, Claudia and became very close with my cousin Becky. The three of us were the same age and Becky had a key to our apartment. I was emotionally having such a difficult time getting. I felt dirty. I felt so alone but Claudia and Becky did their damndest to get me out of my funk.

One day, when I came home from work, Becky was washing dishes. She was telling me how her ex boyfriend was stalking her and she was thinking about filing a restraining order. Then, to my surprise, she began telling me about a girl she had started dating. A girl? Becky, grinned and asked my how I told my mom about me being gay. She was thinking about telling her mom. I was sooo happy for her! She seemed thrilled with this new girl as she told me all about her. She was beginning her first lesbian relationship.

The next day….her ex murdered Becky. Then shot himself inside her family home. Apparently, he waited until her parents went to work, her sister and brother went to school and she was all alone. The reports were that she had called 911 (the neighbors had previously called due to a 'disturbance') the front door was kicked in, she was trying to escape from her bedroom window, the screen was bent outwards when the police saw her and ran towards her but then was shot, dragged back in, a couple of shots rang out the window, then he shot himself.

That was too much for me. I was in constant saddness. I couldn't handle the hurt anymore. I felt I had hit the bottom of the barrel. I wanted the saddness to stop so one month after Beckys death, one drunken night, I swallowed sleeping pills and washed them down with alcohol. To be honest, I think drinking all the alcohol helped me because I woke up feeling so sick and threw everything up.

All this happened in 1993. 18 years ago. September 29 is the anniversary of Beckys death. This September 29, I'll be in San Francisco, in a city I love and I know~ that day ~ I'll remember my cousin whom I will always love and will always have a very special place in my heart.