Wasting Time

Things have been tough with my Mom since my Dad died. She's gotten really bitter and angry and pretty much sucks the life out of you every time you talk to her. She wasn't always that way, but 10+ years of caring for my Dad in poor health has really taken its toll. My sister and I both talk about it, and we just haven't really known where to go with it. While I was up at my sister's place for my Dad's memorial, my sister decided to talk to my mother about her spiral into bitterness. I didn't realize that they were having "the conversation" until it was over.

In that conversation, something happened that told me clearly that my sister really "gets it" and reaffirmed my love and respect for her. My mom told my sister that she envied me. She envied the fact that I didn't have a care in the world. She envied the fact that nothing bothered me. She envied the fact that I never let anything stop me from doing what I wanted. She was always worried because I didn't seem to take things like the financial crisis and other issues that could impact me seriously. Rather than save as much as possible, I took trips to Mexico to cave dive in the Cenotes of the Riviera Maya. Rather than sock it all away for "my future", I spend thousands to cover my body with ink. My sister laughed. She said, "You miss the whole point. He has plenty of concerns, and plenty of things to be worried about, but he enjoys every minute of life IN SPITE OF all of that."

I've been living with HIV for over 15 years now. I've lost partners, friends, loved ones to the disease. I've seen friends gay bashed, been bashed myself, and hated just for being who we are. But you know, overall, LIFE IS GOOD! Every day is an adventure, every breath an opportunity for something amazing. When I was in my MBA program, we were asked to develop our personal mission statement. It's done a lot in management programs. The personal mission statement is yours and yours along. It is as unique as each individual. Some are pages, some are deep and wide and some just a few words. Mine is very simple:

Life is short!

You're either living life or wasting time.

DON'T WASTE TIME!!!

That's it. Sort of personal mission Haiku (yeah I know, doesn't fit the Haiku rules, but you get the idea).

If I lose my job, I lose my health care. If I lose my job, I lose my house. My dogs are getting old, they will be gone soon. The meds make me feel like shit some days. I'm hated by a large portion of the country and even the world just because I'm who I am, even though they don't know me.....god, the list goes on and on.

SO FUCKING WHAT??!?!?!

My woes are no greater than anyone else, and in most cases, pale in comparison to those living with AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa, those persecuted and threatened with life in prison or even the death penalty for being gay, kids in our own streets without a home, a meal, a place to stay warm and dry, kids killing themselves because they are different, and bullied for being different.

I vow every day, that I will LIVE LIFE! Not only will I live it, I'll ENJOY it!! And I do. I am blessed with a roof over my head, I'm still not dead (so that 's a plus), a job that I love. I get to spend time with friends, photograph the beauty of the world, listen to the sounds that make up our existence. When I want to go, I go. When I want to play, I play. When I want to laugh, I laugh. I've been single for over 14 years this month, and I'm as happy now as I have ever been with any man in my life. I go to the movies by myself when I want to see a movie and can't find a partner in crime. I have no problem traveling alone. I think nothing of booking a hotel for the weekend in Orlando and going to the theme parks on my own. Dining alone at a restaurant is not an issue for me. Driving to the lake or the beach and just being, is not intimidating to me.

All of this is because I REFUSE to waste time! I refuse to sit around in tears of woe because I am single. I refuse to dwell on a disease and medications that daily chip away at my body. I refuse to crawl into a hole and hide. And I WILL NOT WAIT! Now is the time to laugh, to play to have fun. It's no secret if you have read this blog at all that I am a PIG!! I AM A HUGE PIG :@) I've seen people friend me on Facebook only to tell me that my exploits are a bit much for them and then unfriend me. That's cool. I make NO apologies. I love every fuck, piss, blow job, flogging I give, sounding session, spitting, kissing, spanking, groping, cumming, you name it. It means I'm ALIVE and living every minute. I will make no apologies for that.

In the end, I think my sister's conversation with my Mom might have helped. Every time I talk to my Mom, I always tell her to LIVE HER ADVENTURE! I think she is finally getting it. I really hope so....I'm happy that I get it!!

Saying GoodBye

Last week came on so quickly. Since my Dad passed on Thanksgiving, we were waiting for the time that we could say goodbye properly. Our plan from the beginning had been to scatter his ashes in the Cape Cod Canal. My Dad loved to fish and he spent many many hours fishing on the canal. At one time he held the record for the largest striped bass caught from land in the Canal. It was close to 5 feet long. Dad also proposed to my Mom at the top of the Railroad Bridge. All things considered, it was the best place for his final rest, and it was where he said he wanted to be. We planned to wait until June so that we could avoid the icy in the canal.

So, time flew by, and there I was in the airport in Tampa waiting for my flight to Boston....my delayed by 2 hours flight to Boston :-) I read an article while I was waiting about one line of thinking about what happens to us after we die. The short version of this article was that our perception of time is rooted in our physical existence. We perceive past, present and future, because of out physical ties to space and time. Without those physical ties, the author suggested, we float freely in time and space, full of potential and able to chose any direction and no direction. He posited that the possibilities are infinite, as the physical ties that root us are removed. A lot of this was based on Einstein and time and Quantum physics. It really got me thinking. As I finally sat on the plane, I was just engulfed in a sense of peace and well being. When it's all over, it never was or would be. We just are, pure and simple.

The next few days were a flurry of activity. In addition to preparing for the memorial service and the scattering of Dad's ashes, I was staying with my sister and her family. My nephew (10) and my niece (8) are great kids. I don't get to see them much, but when I do, I like to make the most of it. So, I went to the baseball games, and took them out shopping, and played Wii with them (what a fucking workout that Wii shit is!!). My sister and I laughed as we always have. We are 2 years apart and I can honestly say, I have the best sister on the planet.

Saturday came and the memorial service was beautiful. I drove the bus, and it was a very short bus :-) No sooner did I open my mouth, then the tears started and the throat closed. I swore I was over all the emotion. But as I stood there in front of friends and family that I had not seen for years, it struck me that Dad was not there. And then I remembered the article and realized that Dad was wherever and whenever he chose to be. We shared a lot of stories about Dad, and laughed...a lot. We had arranged for a buffet lunch and as I walked around to all of the tables, thanking everyone for coming, and chatting, I learned even more about my Dad. People shared funny stories with me that I had never heard before. It was a great tribute to a man who was loved by many.

The next day, we were supposed to go out on the boat to scatter his ashes. The weather did not want to cooperate. Between the fog and the pending thunderstorms, we had to cancel the boat trip. Not being ones to give up easily, my sister and her husband and I set about figuring out how to scatter Dad's ashes without a boat. The canal has a steep bank that leads down to a steep band of rocks and boulders before the water. We weren't sure we'd be able to get close enough to pour the ashes in. We were going to need to get them in from a distance. We toyed with putting the ashes in various porous containers and then using a fishing rod to cast the container into the water and reel it in , allowing the ashes to seep out. We finally settled on a somewhat crazy idea. We divided thee ashes up into 6 paper sandwich bags, one each for me, my mom and sister, her husband and two kids (my sister is eco friendly so these were highly biodegradable.) We then tore a few slits at the top of the bags. The plan was to use my nephew's lacrosse sticks to catapult the ashes the 20 fee to the water.

We all piled into the car and took Dad on his last drive. We drove by the two houses that my Dad built from the ground up, we lived in both of them as we grew up. When I say from the ground up, I mean everything from digging by hand the hole for the foundation to laying the bricks for foundation and chimneys to erecting walls and roof and doing all the electrical and plumbing. We then drove to the Canal and spent some time at the Railroad Bridge remembering Dad. There were too many people around to not cause suspicion with lacrosse sticks and paper bags, so we drove down to the parking area near Dad's favorite fishing spot. We slid down the slippery bank of grass and caught ourselves with the trees at the bottom. We said a few words of goodbye and the each of us took our bag, loaded our lacrosse sticks and "cast" Dad out into one of his favorite places in the world. The bags sank quickly and we knew that the bags would dissolve and the ashes would be picked up in the current and take Dad on a new journey. I tossed a wreath of flowers which was quickly caught in the current. We walked along the service road, watching that wreath as it floated peacefully down the waters that my Dad had loved so much. After about 20 minutes of watching and following, we said our final goodbyes and headed back to the car. On the way home, we drove by some of Dad's other favorite places, and laughed and told stories to my niece and nephew about their Papa. I really couldn't think of a better way to say goodbye.

The rest of the week went by quickly. My sister and I get to escape for a day to P-town, and we had a blast. We walked and shopped for 7 or 8 hours and had a great lunch at the Lobster Pot, one of my favorite places to eat in P-town. I got to see my nephew play in more baseball games, and got have lots of laughs with both my niece and nephew. The time went by so quickly. As I sat at the airport in Boston, waiting to board my flight home, I wondered at how quickly time went by, and then I was reminded of that article I read and realized that it was all relative. I still think about that article. Without the physical world to anchor us, it's all just infinite potential. For some that may be an uneasy thought, but for me, it sounds like Heaven!!