This post has taken twenty years to write.  With that being said there is a good chance it will be horribly long.  And possibly sad.  This is not the whole story.  There are many more parts.  But this is all that can come out after twenty years. It has been a long road.  The rest of the story will come out.  In time.

How long is too long to grieve?  One year? Five years? A decade?  A lifetime?

Does it matter who you are grieving for?  A child?  A friend?  A sibling?

What about how they died?  Was it fast and unexpected?  An illness that was a long time coming?  Or horribly traumatic and violent?

Each person is different.  That is what I know about grief.  And each person will work through it the way they feel necessary.  There is no wrong way to grieve.  No set amount of time.  There is not a proper way to grieve.  Everyone has their story.

This is mine.

I grew up in a middle income family.  There were points where we had more money than others.  Specifically the point where I attended a private Catholic school.  And other points where we had holes in our floors.  I grew up mostly normal.  Mom, Dad, myself and a brother.  He was three years younger.  And the root of my first memory.  One where I remember driving really far from home.  Walking into a strange building and sitting on an old 70's style rounded leather sectional.  Waiting until someone came and got our little trio and beckoned us to look through a round window on a swinging door.  My mom held me up and allowed me to peek into a room filled from wall to wall with those weird see through sided bassinets.  Babies.  For what seemed like miles to a recently turned three year old.  I remember my mom saying, "Your brother is here.  Right there."  Pointing to a little round baby that they gingerly and lovingly picked up and took to a counter that lined the back wall.  There were rows of diapers and bottles.  Many things I did not at that age recognize.  I, in expected three year old fashion, specifically pointed out a different baby I wanted.  I did not want that little walrus sized boy.  I wanted the screaming little girl in the bassinet in front of him.  The one raising her hand.  As if to tell me "I am yours!"  I did not get my wish.  We were at the stork's house.  To pick up our baby.  The one my parents had been waiting on for over six months.  Just as they had waited for me three years earlier.

My mother was barren.  A horrible case of endometriosis had robbed her of the only thing she had ever wanted in her life.  A baby.  But thanks to a bit of money, and knocked up teenagers, she got her wish.  Two babies three years apart with totally different biologicals.  But we were hers.  And she loved us.  With all of her being.  I eventually came to understand that my brother and I were adopted.  It took me a few years to figure out we were different.  Blonde haired and blue eyed brought into a huge family of coonass'.  We stuck out as much as you could imagine.  There were hurdles with being adopted.  My father's father thought less of him.  Convinced he was 'less of a man' for not being able to produce a child.  It just had to be his fault.  He hated us.  We were not of the right blood.  My father was the man.  And all of his brothers and sisters older than him to that point had managed to have at least one child.  My mother's family never once batted an eye.  To them, we were special.  Meant to be there.  There was only one other adopted person in our family, but he was biologically related to the father of that couple.  And I did not know of it until well into my adulthood.  That great aunt was my mother's angel.  She understood what it was like to want a child with every cell in your body.  Her sister, my grandmother, had produced eight children.  She, like my mother, was barren.

I remember my mother having a hysterectomy when I was three.  Not very long after bringing my brother home from babyville.  That was the start of her problems.  You see, she was a smoker.  And back in the stone ages, they made women get on hormone replacement.  Something that we know now is not a good idea for women over the age of 35 who smoke.  I remember the mood swings and hot flashes.  I remember my father jokingly poking fun saying "Woman! Take your pill!" when she would get fussy.  What I did not remember were the blood clots that were caused.  The blood clots that eventually led to her death.

You see, twenty years ago today...my mother died.  She had a blood clot in her arm.  She did not want to bother going to the doctor.  She would just 'rub it out'.  Horrible advice for someone with a blood clot.  Had she gone to the doctor that time and survived, just a few years later she would have been diagnosed with something long and complex and put on blood thinners.  Meds that would have saved her life.  But that was not what was in the charts.  She had a massive heart attack.  On our living room couch.  While the whole family was home just five days shy of my first day of school Sophomore year of high school.  Great way to start the year huh?  Yeah.  I thought it blew too.  I remember that whole agonizing hour.  From my brother running outside asking "What does it mean when your left arm hurts and it is hard to breathe?" to the point of her being taken away.

Sitting there on that couch she knew what was happening.  She gave lots of good advice.  Go to prom.  Get married.  Have kids.  Take care of your brother.  Almost 20 minutes of advice.  Most of which I have forgotten and would give anything to remember.  All the while I was on the phone trying to get my uncle to come with the ambulance.  He was head of our volunteer fire department.  But it was not in the cards.  The man who had been on duty the night before had gone home with the ambulance barn keys in his pocket and was nowhere to be found.  I remember running outside to the front yard.  Frantically praying and looking down the road for someone, anyone, coming.  A gentleman on his tractor with his young son in the cab passed.  I ran to the road begging him to come in.  My mom was dying.  She was having a heart attack.  Could he help?  Please?  He was scared.  As I could imagine I would have been.  He just shook his head and drove on.  I found out years later he still carried the burden of driving away.  I fell to my knees in the yard shouting at the heavens "Why?  Why?  I am too young for this.  I do not deserve this!!  She loves us!"  I did not understand.  I was only 15.  I remember my father not letting me do CPR even though I knew how.  Making me read how to perform it out of the encyclopedia.  He did not want me to carry the burden of not being able to save her.  Instead I carried the burden of him not letting me do what I knew how to do.  Later finding out that the clot was so large, she could have been on the operating room table and there would have still been no saving her.  I remember my dad driving my brother and I, followed by countless aunts and uncles that had showed up at the house to my Grandmothers.  Begging him to slow down.  Let me drive.  He was going to have a heart attack too.  This was the beginning of numb.

The numb that lasted through the arrangements.  The 15 year old daughter that had to pick out the casket because the father had collapsed to his knees at the opening to the room and could not go further.  The daughter that had to call people, because the father could not bear to utter the words after hearing the howl coming from his own mothers lips after being told that 'Sweet Marie' had died.  The 15 year old daughter that did not shed a tear.  Not. One. Single. Tear. through the whole ordeal.  The 15 year old daughter that overnight became mother to her 12 year old brother, and caretaker of a house.  The cook.  The washer.  The one that hated Big G for taking her mother.  But would not cry.    

That 15 year old girl got lost somewhere.  She grew up too fast.  She drank too much.  She had sex too early.  She lost her way.  Her father got married less than six months later and would not, could not, talk about her.  The love of his life.  His wife for 23 years.  He put his kids through hell that first marriage.  And would put his kids through hell with a second.  But he was in his own hell.  One they did not understand.  One that the 15 year old daughter, when grown, would experience when her own daughter was three.  It is a hell.  But a different hell experienced as a child and a parent.  Those feelings would get shoved down.  Talking about her mother would only bring heartache.  Those feelings would eat at her.  Until she was no longer herself.  But she would get over it.  And rise up.  And ten years and one day after her mother's death anniversary, her daughter's father would die.  And those feelings would rage back in with an ugly vengeance.  And turn the now 24 year old mother into someone completely different.  That woman would not get off the couch for almost six months.  She would neglect her daughter.  Her work.  Her house.  Her life.  She would get over it.  And rise again.  But a bit slower.  And changed.

She would realize her mistakes.  And that her daughter was different.  She would see the Asperger's, and the OCD and the stress disorder that ate at her child.  But she would overcome it.  She would meet her soulmate and bestest of bestest friends.  And that friend would help her.  Help her to overcome the grief.  And the hate.  She would help her become a great mother.  Help her emotionally heal.  She would become me again.  And I was so glad to have her back.  I was so glad to be me again.  To feel and laugh.  I wanted another child.  Found someone I loved.  That child was so loved.  But hurt me.  Caused nine months of hell.  That child's father would walk out.  That child's birth would open up a black hole.  Postpartum depression.  It consumed that mother.  Turned the numbness back on.  And turned her into a stranger.  Locked deep inside was the 15 year old.  She would be lost.  Forever.

I struggle everyday.  Every. Single. Day.  I hate that I cannot mother my children the way they deserve to be mothered.  I hate that I scream and yell.  I hate that I cry uncontrollably.  I hate...her.  She is not me.  And slowly, more and more everyday, I am leaving.  I want to be normal.  I want to be happy.  I want to come home and hold my children and love them.  It is this grief!!  This fucking grief that has gripped me for twenty years.

Five nights ago that monster raged again.  As it does every August.  It led to a drunken night.  Laying in the cemetery over a grave that holds my heart.  Falling asleep praying.  Asking that wonderful woman to forgive me.  To give me the strength to fix myself.  To become myself again.  To live again.  To make it long enough...to be over.

Today I decided that twenty years is long enough.  Long enough to grieve.  Long enough to let that monster live and take control.  Long enough for the rage to consume a person.  Today I decided that I would return.  So tomorrow I will wake up and start fighting.  Hope that the damage I have done to my children will be forgotten with time.  Hope that they will see that I do love them.  More than the moon and through and through.  I decided that the grief has made me bitter.  Incapable of love.  Incapable of having a relationship.  That grief has ruled me.  I hate that grief.  I will own it.  I will take it.  Turn it into love.

And find me.  Cause she is fucking awesome!  And I sure miss her crazy ass.

It has been 10958.266 days since the first reports of what would become known as HIV/AIDS was first mentioned in the United States.  In this time AIDS has gone from something that the medical community knew nothing about to a disease that is becoming understood and treatable.  To think that in my lifetime we have been able to discover what virus was behind the early symptoms and create cocktails of medicines that can allow those infected to live for decades.  Thirty years later and there are over 30 drugs approved to treat HIV/AIDS.  A disease that when first diagnosed thirty years ago also came with a very short life expectancy.  This disease that was thought to be only a 'gay' disease has since taken on a new face.  Every year more and more minority heterosexuals are becoming infected.  Although gay, bisexual, and other men that have sex with men remain the group most affected by AIDS, the African American community face the most burden.  Over 56000 Americans become infected each year with nearly 17000 infected dying yearly of AIDS or ARC.

Globally more than 33 million people are living with HIV/AIDS.  Low and middle income countries hold 97% of these numbers.  It is estimated that more than a million infected are living in the U.S. and one in five of those are not aware they are infected.  Programs and public service announcements urge Americans to get tested every day.  Whether it is the fear of needles, the truth or ignorance that keeps people from being tested the most important thing you can do is know.  Know so that you can keep yourself healthy, know so that you can stop the spread, know so that you can live.

Last year I wrote a post about my brother.  About eating lunch with a person that is dying.  You see 30 years was at one time thought unattainable by him.  He was diagnosed before he was thirty.  We were afraid he would never see thirty.  Thirty?  Such a short time.  Too short.  Unfortunately, my life has been touched by this horrible disease.  Touched in a close and personal way.  I have lost family members and friends to this disease.  But I have also seen them live.  Last year sitting at that lunch celebrating Lil'K's fifth birthday I was so afraid that he would not be here to see her sixth.  Just as I was afraid he would never see thirty.  As we fear every year that there will not be another.  As we sat at his house celebrating with cake and dinner just a few months ago, it occurred to me that he was still there.  We all were.  She was turning six and he was living.  Still here.  Alive and kicking.  It has not been easy.  There have been illness and injuries.  Things that to normal people would go by unnoticed, but to him were devastating.  There was depression and times it was hard to go on.  There were friends that left because of it, lovers that hated because of it, and jobs that quit because of it.  There were changes in medicines and times without medicines.  Times when fighting the system for that medicine seemed as slow and painful as the virus itself.  There have been tears and fears.  Crying and laughing.  All of this...over this thing.  This thing...this monster that sucks the life from people is devastating.  It is sick.  It wreaks havoc.  In every part of life.  Of living.  Not just to those infected but to the ones that love the infected.

The girls and I spent this last weekend with him.  He looked SO good.  SO healthy.  That is the down side of the up side.  The looking healthy on the outside and dying on the inside.  He is able to shave his beard now.  The one that hid a horrible infection he struggled with for so long.  An infection the new meds have fixed.  He is able to smile without hurting.  His jaw and neck are not swollen as they were before.  Something the meds have fixed.  He is able to enjoy the chips and cheese dip because there are no sores in his mouth.  Something the meds have fixed.  Friday evening we cooked hotdogs and laughed.  Made plans to head to the beach on Saturday.  Had a drink and visited.  We talk about his health but it is quick.  Mostly about his numbers and where they were at the last report.  What new meds he is taking and how the side effects are.  But this conversation is quick.  It is painful to discuss these things.  It confirms he is sick.  Still a subject that is tender.  So we go back to laughing.  Planning a sunny day in the waves.  Saturday I drive him to work early in the morning.  Crabby that I have to wake up earlier than needed but glad to have the time.  By the time I pick him up from work he is exhausted.  A side effect of the virus and the meds that help fight it.  The meds that help to fix so much also help to sap his energy.  He has a huge knot on his leg.  From where?  No telling.  It hurts to walk and is uncomfortable to sit.  But this is life.  His life.  And the life of many many others living with the virus.  What does he do?  He sucks it up.  BBQ's the chicken and heads to the beach with us.  He does what so many others have to do.  He lives.  Because he has to.  Because he wants to.  Because the last thirty years tells him that he could have thirty more.  Because he made it past thirty.  And wants that next thirty...

In thirty years we have come so far.  And we will continue to go further.  I look forward to going further.  To him going further.  I look forward to celebrating Lil'K's seventh birthday.  Because it will be a year further that we have gotten.

Yes it is scary.  Yes it is horrible.  Yes it is hard.  But knowing is half the battle.  Knowing so you do not continue to infect others.  Knowing so you can live.

So go!! Go know.


**Statistics provided by http://aids.gov/hiv-aids-basics/hiv-aids-101/.

wow.  i have really slacked lately.  no writing, or commenting.  barely even reading to speak of lately.  sheesh.  i suck.

i have a few posts stuck up in the noggin to share.  and i promise i will get right on that.  sometime this week.  but for right now how about a recap??

i did save my house.  woo hoo me.  not sure how i will continue to save it the next three months but it will happen.  i found the $200 i lost. in. my. car.  yay again.  i got a full body deep tissue acupressure massage.  yeah.  i'm still sore.  it is almost time to start mowing again here in the great country of Texas and i am NOT happy about that.  everyone hates the cold weather but for me it just means i do not have to mow yet.  and that makes me happy.  today is hit up the laundromat day.  other than that just a shit ton of other stuff going on.  i will truly try to post this week.  get some of this junk off my head.

Hindsight sucks.

I get it.  The whole meaning of it.  The point is that you do not always see it at the time.

I saw it.  I just did not push as hard, or say the right things, or keep asking until I got the answer I was needing.

I know time cannot be reversed.  Big G knows if it could I would change a ton of things.  At least on some days.

Today I would change something; I would have pushed more or tried harder.  Gotten on that plane.  Any plane.  Way back when and just showed up.  I wonder what it would have changed.  If anything.  I try to believe that there is a plan.  That everything happens as it should.  That does not mean I have to like it.  It does not mean that I do not have the right to get angry sometimes.  I am allowed to get jealous.  Just a bit.  I also try to not dwell too much on the 'what ifs', but I cannot help it.  All I keep thinking is for all this heartache I have had to go through in the last 13 years, there better be something awesome up ahead.  I understand needing to go through the shit to get to the shine.

I do not understand, however, the need for heartbreak.  Maybe because I always seem to be right in the middle of it.  Maybe that is why I do not see the need for it.  That and it hurts.  Maybe I am more sensitive than even I realize.  Maybe I fall too hard sometimes.  I say sometimes...but there have really only been three.

*My Knight In Shining Armor.  The one that still makes my heart hurt.  The one that I should have told the truth to.  But I did not.  And now, he is gone.  And I am not the only one that was hurt by that.  I still cry when I think of you.  And so does she.  You left behind too many.  And the little ones really needed you.  I could have lived forever with the fact you were not mine...had you just stayed here.  And not left.
*Delta.  That was too much time lost.  Hoping for something that you could not give to me.  I can see you now.  We are friends.  I can appreciate it.  I do not want to throw up when I see you anymore.  My heart does not hit my stomach.  When I look at you I just see a friend.
*Mr. Bubbles.  Yeah I know.  You are probably laughing at that.  I can say I did not mean to fall.  I really did not.  And I know you did not mean for things to turn out the way they did.  I know you cannot undo it either.  I do not want you to.  I am just wounded.  It will get better.

But those three have lasted for the last 13 years.  And it ends the same every time...heartache.  I am left not getting the one I want.  It is really beginning to get old.  Should I pick better?  Not let myself fall?  Then I run the risk of shutting myself off.  Like I have done so many times in the past.  After each heartache comes a shut down period.  And then it happens again.  The fall.  I am not sure what I have done.  Or did not do.  Why it is I that obviously has to go through so many heartaches.  I do know there will not be much left of my heart to give when all this is over.  When will it be over?

Because I am so ready.  For anything.  Just something wonderful.  Not the tears.

This weekend was awesome.  I laughed and had fun.  I was good.  No broken drought.  I was looking so forward to it.  I was ready for the fact that at the end of it all....it still was not mine.  I was not ready for how hard it ended up being.  For the fact that I had to stop, in the parking lot, and catch my breath.  I was not ready for the hurt feelings.  For the green monster to show up.   I was not ready for the tears that rushed out of me.  For the heaving breaths and sobbing.  I was not ready to face that fact I thought I had prepared for.  It is not fair.  I know, life is not fair.  I get it.  But it still does not sting any less.  I know you are sorry for all of it.  In turn, I am sorry too that you even had to be in it all.  I do not know if you wish it would have turned out different.  Maybe that is the answer I am looking for.  I do.  But that is because I was the one that lost.  You see, you still won.  Well not on all fronts, but for the most part you won.  You gained two great things, even though in my opinion you lost out on one.  Me.  Me?  I lost.  And it sucks.  And it is not fair.  I have no regrets.  I do not wish I would have stayed home.  I am glad I went.  It was a long time coming.  It was overdue.  I was glad it happened.  And not another 8 years passing by.  I do not want to reverse that.

You were everything I had imagined over all those years you would have been.  You were funny, adorable, kinder than I had imagined, and so many more things.  The one thing you were not and will never be...was mine.  That...I want to reverse.

I am a big girl.  I must put the panties on and deal.  But right now, I just want to process it.  I will get over it.  I have to.  There is no other choice.  Fair or not, it is what it is.  And everything will be fine.  I will shut down. And come back.

I do not wish it did not happen.  The whole way home I wished that things would have happened.  That you would have told me my feelings were not mine only.  That if you could do it differently you would have.  That you wish you could reverse it.  But I am not even sure if you wish those things.  I wished you would have just touched me.  But I probably would have cried...and well...it would have been wrong.  I know that.  But I wish you would have.  That for the weekend it could have been mine.  It would have just made things even harder.  Harder than they already were.  And I do not want that.  For either of us.  The problem is with all the things I wished, it would not have changed anything.  It would have made my heartache worse.

My wishes are over.  I will accept things the way they are.  And get over it.  This is part of me processing it.  I will be fine.  I just wanted to wallow a bit.  And get it off my head.

The funny thing is when I got on the road and turned on my iPod...the first song that played after I hit shuffle was:

">Guess what song?

Funny huh.

there is a joke in our family that my BFF is ... the mighty one. she can do anything. she sews, crochets, cooks, raises kids, keeps me in line, handles Juice with a grace i could never muster, and deals with an assload of pain every single day of her life. these are just a few of the things she rocks at. i could seriously go on and on with all the awesome and mighty things she does. one of the few things she does not do is give herself nearly enough props or take nearly enough time for herself. but then again with three kids of her own, a husband, and me and my two to deal with she always has too much on her plate. we met 13 years ago this coming summer at a job we both worked at. to be honest we really did not care for each other. one good conversation later we have been best friends / confidants / soul sisters ever since. she is someone that cannot be replaced in my life. i do not know what i would ever do without her. and i can honestly say i would not have made it this far without her being by my side for the last almost 13 years. even on her worst days she is still my best friend. no questions. no judging. just there. i wish everyone in the world could have a BFF like her. they would be much richer!!

i just want to take the time and tell her: thank you. and happy birthday.

i hope we are here in 30 more years still laughing with and at each other.