On Hold

I said in yesterday's post that I was going to write a little about my concerns about an upcoming potentially contentious, and extremely personal article I sold to a magazine from a blog post here.

But my "friend" from Antwerp [see Cast of Characters in sidebar] whose relationship with me is so good, and unusual, and difficult to explain - called today. So I need to write about that instead.

I will not be able to write this well now and will coordinate it all somehow when I don't feel like I feel like I do.

I was online and had checked my statmeter and there was the little Belgian flag under the category of Who's On. Since his reading this blog has been a point of contention for awhile now [see post "Circuity, the Solstice "] for a while now, but since he had backed off for a while as I had asked, I actually started missing that little flag, that knowing he was thinking about me, checking in - even though it inhibits things I need need need to be able to express here.

When I saw that he was online on my site I thought about calling, which I have never done, - just to tease him that I caught him in the act. And then the phone rang. It was a good connection this time. He said Hey and I said Hey you're on my site, and it lightened it up a bit.

We had a long conversation of things we know, but don't discuss, but that have been brought up by sideways references in writing here that he has read. I can't (am not able yet) to talk about what we discussed.

He did acknowledge the helpfulness this kind of writing has been for me, and said that he supported it (which I had thought he had put down - that it was "a superficial intimacy" - but he said that was before he started reading what was here). So that helped. Other people I know "in the real world" know this address, and the open information has definitely affected relationships in easing and difficult ways, but this my "friend" is the only person through which part or who I am has been expressed in years, and those are all things that are completely affected by my core affliction, and I need need need to write about it here, in privacy from him, included in the patchwork quilt of the rest of my life. I can't just leave it out.

I can not put into words how much this hurts, and what causes the hurt is what I want - from him. I can say that now because we have an agreement that he would not read this at all for a little while. He said he didn't want to inhibit something helpful, and asked how long I needed. I said one month. It wouldn't even take that long to say what I want to say "out-loud" here, but it'll take a little while to adjust to the idea that this really is my space. I probably won't want to erase it at all afterwards either - tear it out, definitely won't, so after this period of a month, even when he is allowed back on, I will just have to trust him not to come back to here. That would be difficult for me in reverse.

He gets tested tomorrow. He has had this compartmentalized relationship with me for over ten years. We are intensely together a week or two every year or two (the last three visits were road trips) and we hardly speak in between, and ask no questions, for the most part. I have been fine knowing he surely has relationships, even though I don't have. This last trip [see post " Return From the Desert "] is the only time we had were unprotected. He started it and I didn't stop it. And I kept expecting him to. It was like being taken over by an angel. I've been 'good' about that my whole HIV-known life. I couldn't stop something that felt so good and so redemptive and accepted. And to think that something that holy feeling is normal for most people? To take in a part of who someone is? He is being offered a mission (International Red Cross) in Afghanistan. Where he has a relationship. He told me her name. [that's what I was talking about when I said something has changed, he's changing something. [see post "The Day After Christmas"] - It was that he was specific. And I didn't know why he would be, and I was completely supporting - as I should and would want to be. He said he felt he should tell me. But that is when I got depressed. Because I didn't know why. I didn't know if he was telling me because this particular named relationship was some new kind, or just because he realized and was acknowledging how profoundly close I'd felt to him since the first night and morning of that trip in a way that I don't think I knew was possible.] He hasn't seen her in a long time, and he doesn't know where they now stand, but they've been in touch. And it could be potentially exclusive. He doesn't like the working conditions in Kabul. The reason o go there (he has his choices of missions) is to be with her.

A real legitimate relationship that would fit his real life. not the compartments of our incomparable road trips.

He has to have full medical before and after missions. He says he usually gets the results of all the tests (I don't know what else he gets tested for) in about ten days.

You can't know for sure that you don't have HIV till six months, but you can find out fast if you do. I told him about rapid same-day (HIV) testing which he didn't know about before our trip, but he seemed unconcerned. I mean he wants to know obviously but he's not worried. He promised he'd let me know when he knew.

I didn't want to cry. He said he would feel the same in reverse, but there is no reverse. How can he even think he knows what that means - and please God he never does. If there were such a thing as prayer I would be asking as many people as possible to pray that I have not infected my "friend." I cannot take this all at the same time. I'm cutting my hair off short tomorrow for some kind of superstitious prayer or punishment, so he can be safely with other people not my kind. The clean people. If he were my kind we could be together and never have to worry about it that way and that is such an evil thought and I love him and would never want to want this to anyone. Oh God. We never say "love." He says mmy name, you are very dear to me."