A Life Pre-Destined

A Life Pre-Destined: Written 08-21-08

My first thought when I woke this morning was that I am living the exact life that I am supposed to be living, that there’s some magic at work that makes me – ME, living this exact life. It’s often my first thought of my day, before the hustle of the day takes me elsewhere, before the other people living within my head convinces me otherwise. By the end of the day, I’m restless at all I haven’t achieved, I’ve beaten up on myself about countless failures, I’ve stripped myself of the magic that I woke with this morning, that my life is good, and exactly what and how it needs to be to get to where I need to go before I die.

My second thought this morning is what I will write about today with a little discretion but I must get it out. I’ve challenged myself to wake up each morning of my trip to write a blog a day about whatever I feel. Last night, going to bed, I noted that I would too shoot a video that communicates my appreciation for the blessing of Brazil and being able to use my passport one more time. But my second thought today was not about Brazil or vacationing, but about pre-destiny. It was a conversation that I often wrestled with as a kid.

Do you believe that our lives are pre-destined? Or do you believe we hold the power to make our lives exactly what we want it to be? I’m still wrestling with the answer today. As a young kid, with the impression of God and religion and a kid-like connection to spirituality, I totally believed in pre-destiny. But with that came a laziness to act because why act, if the road has already been fully planned out for you. As a kid, I rested on life to take me where it was already planned I would go. What I now believe is some marriage of the two in which the acting and doing the work is me learning who I am all over again. It’s some new-age thinking with a mix of Anthony-ism that explains what I felt in my spirit all along, and is how I think and live today.

So I digress from my second thought of the day. My second thought this morning was realizing that HIV has been a part of my life since I was eight years old. For the first time in my life, I realized that my original connections to HIV that I often talk about (Rock Hudson on Donahue, the fashion designer Willi Smith dying weeks before I was to meet him, being tested for HIV ten times in London then Texas, knowing then losing Russel and Terrence when I first moved to Atlanta) were all preceded by a close friend of mine when I was eight years old eventually dying from complications of HIV – probably when I was fifteen or so. At the time, in the 1980’s, I was told that he died of cancer, probably from all we didn’t know about HIV in 1984. Knowing what I know now about HIV, it had to be that way. Even close friends and family was told that he had cancer but I now know that he died from HIV.

I’m writing this crazy novel now tentatively titled “Never Just Sex” and I woke feeling like no one but I should write this book, that I have to write this book as part of my pre-destined life to say what this book will say, to tell the story that will have the impact/s that it will have on myself and the world. “Never Just Sex” will place me in the heart of such important dialogue, conversations that are nature for me to facilitate, discourse that continues to teach and feed my spirit and informs my work as an HIV counselor. I feel so connected to my destiny this morning. And it didn’t start with Rock Hudson on Donahue. And it’s not just because I’ve been an HIV counselor for close to ten years now. Imagine that irony. I went to school for music and at 17, you couldn’t tell me anything else I was going to do with my life but music. It’s all connected and the links to this dream began when I was about 8 years old. My childhood friend was taken from me because of HIV when I was 15. This pisses me off. That the world was not ready for the truth of his death and inevitably the lessons within his passing, this pisses me off too. Imagine the number of lives that may have been spared if his truth could have been told to me, my friends, his family, the world. I don’t remember exactly how old he was, but he was young and taken way too early. This is why I must write my novel. This, and all things to follow in the link, up to today, is why I’ve committed my Brazil Trip 3 to writing.