I BOUGHT FLOWERS TODAY

I bought flowers today, what a normal, everyday life simple action it is.  I realized that it had been years since the last time I bought flowers. I went home and place them on a vase in the living room. I became very emotional while looking at them,  thinking how I had forgotten how much I liked flowers, realizing  that it had been years since I've done anything spontaneous for myself and how  I haven’t allowed myself time to simply enjoy simple things in life.

Since my HIV diagnosis on October 1992, I have been fighting to survive. I have not allowed myself to relax, to take a break from it all. My thoughts, my energy have all been focused on spiritual, emotional health in order to better deal with the physical health. I am tired of trying for all these years to find the strength to deal with it all, some days I just don’t have it.

 I get tired of the medications, the constant pain and discomfort of my liver, the waiting for a new protocol that may, or may not, “cured” my Hep-C. When did all of these thinks become my life? It’s hard to remember what life was like before it all started.

But today I bought some flowers, also this evening I listen to poetry being read in the plaza near my apartment, it all made me realized that if I allow the simple things back in my life, it makes it easier to deal with it all. As of today I will buy flowers every week for myself, maybe I’ll start going to the beach again, which is something I haven’t done in a few years either. I need to break away from the isolation that I have created for my own safety and protection. I’m still very much alive and I think I have forgotten that.