Toughing it out

It's morning (though all the curtains are drawn and it is back to being damp and dark after a brief burst of spring-like global warming side effect), and though I feel guilty for not being at work/going back to the pile of papers on my desk, I let myself off the hook by acknowledging that I worked for a bit yesterday. P. comes back today. He's only been gone 4 days but it feels like ages. Not because I missed him every single minute (though I did, but in my heart of hearts I am not letting go - explanations below), but because, when I am pushed into spending "quality time" with myself, I go places so far and so lonely and so inexplicable it's very hard to imagine any sort of laidback regularity, which is - externally - the main characteristic of our relation.

What did I do this weekend? mostly a lot of emails. There was a workshop Fri and I got taught things which was an escape from myself and felt good, not having to do everything on my own, keeping tabs and lists of to-do things that need to be checked. Found out I am not elligable for entry to the States either. Caught up (partially) on emails. Lost the cold only to get it back. Made chicken soup (the Jewish penicillin) and ate most of it. Watched a DVD in P.'s place by myself with a strange message. Worked some. Had long conversations with R., who recently broke up with his 7 year girlfriend and moved on to the next, and my parents. Got scared, cleaned the kitchen, dyed my roots. When I look back it seems I did do a thing or two, yet always looks so panicky, so makeshift, so futile. Of course, writing here helps me rid of that anxiety, to a point.

The majaority of the time was spent reading various forums and talkbacks on the internet, passively, being repulsed and scared of the world, of Israel. I had this idea that I could go there instead of Xxxx for my work, and probabaly this is something I could convince my supers of, but I don't know now what scares me more - home or a foriegn communist strange land which denies me admission. The latter I think, because going there involves putting more funds in jeopardy. I wish I could beleive in myself more. I know I can get things done, but when the shit hits the fan I just panic. or rather, I panic while preparing for that, because when it does happen I manage - I'm still here aren't I?

I forgot to mention that P. surprised me by emailing twice and skyping from his trip. I didn't expect more than one short message at best, so I was surprised. He wrote that he misses me, that he missed me from the moment he boarded the plane. I should be overjoyed, but I am too scared to be. I have been down that road so many times. The slippery slope of hope and thinking that my lonely trek through this life is over, and so many times I have crushed like a crush test dummy, that I daren't feel happy. So there is a struggle going on inside me now, and the Dalai lam's Art of Happiness lies on the bed, abandoned, because I am not headed in the positive direction, I am not allowing myself to experience love and happiness and feeling young and joyful, because even when I was young I always burned.

I found this old journal which I brought from home. Sometimes when I wake up or fall asleep I promise myself, along with quitting smoking (which I haven't done since P. left and I binged smoked T. the social worker's brand and then threw them in the rubbish and became ill) an toning down my panic-induced eating that I would seek the place that infected me. That I would put messages out looking for a HIV positive female who'd had an abortion in that place at that time. Since I have the date documented. And since there aren't many of "us" walking around in israel. But I don't. I don't go into vendetta mode. Because I think of the multitudes of HIV+ people in the world who are dying with no treatment, and all the countries putting bans on travel, and all the hardships, and stigma and sicrimination, and men raping babies to gain "immunity" in countries where the government disputes that AIDS results from HIV and offers herbs instead of meds, and I tell myself that I am one of many and it doesn't matter how I got it and it doesn't make me special (after all I did have unsafe sex, who didn't?). I tell myself wake up, live up to this reality. But it's hard for me because this is my reality. I admit that I gave myself freely to way too many men (though to most with protection), but this is also the reality that this is not how I got infected. That I got infected through no fault of my own (though as I said, I have been at fault for having unprotected sex with several people - in smaller number than most of my friends, but it only takes once). Anyway that's why I brought the journal from my last visit, becasue it has all the dates in it. But hang on, I didn't know yet then about the US regulations, and I still thought that the guy who infected me was the same one who got me pregnant, the only one of the people I've had unsafe sex with whose status I didn't know. I guess I brought the journal becasue I have this idea that my life is going around in cycles, and that I need to identify that, and see the processes that I go through. I guess I brought it because sometimes I am amazed to see things I wrote or drew years and years ago and look at them and think damn I was good, I had a talent, and I never did anything with it. I still don't. I guess I wanted to see all the nameless humilations (at the time, you don't think you need to write an name because you won't remeber who it is that hurt you). All the self-hatred.

And now that I finally found "him", we will never lose the condom, we will never have children, and probabaly, we will be seperated by circumstances at the end of this year. No wonder I got ill over a week ago when the psychologist at the hospital - whose name I've forgotten - mentioned that. He was absolutely, overwhelmingly right. I need security. I have always needed it, and now I need it even more.

Does God hate me or what, or does He only help those who help themselves, and since I spent most of my life (or at least a good half) not moving in positive direction, but battling with my demons in the basements of life, I can't really see a sliver of sky through the sunken cobwebbed windows. I have to go upstairs and sit in the garden or at least at the windown, and stop pushing myself into these drak corners, into the earth.