Don't Leave me This Way

It's proven to be an interesting process. Sometimes, like today, I am not altogether certain I enjoy it with the zeal it deserves.

Woke up with Richard, snuggling in a King Sized Bed (do I cuddle with all my friends? You bet) in a hotel room three blocks shy of the Atlanta Civic Center. He had to go do his immensely important Event Coordinator stuff (are my friends all Very Important? You bet). I was still lagged from the evening and night before, when I basically did nothing but hang around the Pride Market, enjoy an eight dollar Gyro and two eight dollar margaritas, then follow him to a concert. It was not the most physically taxing stuff, unless going up and down three flights of stairs is taxation.

But after staggering back to the hotel, later that night, showering off and crawling into bed (I really, REALLY love hotel beds. They are GINORMOUS, and they give you so many pillows) I lay there, exhausted, making idle chat with a very sleepy and VERY overworked Richard until I finally received snores for replies. I lay there, in the dark, breathing shallowly because I start to cough if I go too deep.

Thought about the concert, the equivalent of an “oldies” night at Atlanta pride, with CeCe Peniston and Thelma Houston. Richard had received a text message and was off attending to some drama with the Pride Committee, when Thelma Houston broke into “Don't Leave Me This Way.” She prefaced the song by telling everyone that it was out in 1977, but was adopted vigorously by the gay community in the early 80s when people were dying so fast, so terribly, of AIDS. GRID, then,

I am not by nature a weepy person. And songs, in particular, don't usually get me started unless I'm seriously drunk. But standing there, watching the lights flashing across the stage, hearing the song batter my eardums in an unlikely mixture of celebration and regret, I started having contact lens trouble.

I just remembered all the friends I had lost, and how awful that time was. I remembered the early to mid 1990s, when the gay bar rags devoted a full twenty, sometimes thirty extra pages a week to obituaries. I recalled nights spent in hospitals, arguing pointlessly with frustrated doctors and nurses, holding hands already cold. I remembered saying those words, over and over and over again; “Don't Leave Me This Way.”

Not this way. Not this.

I felt that it was, is, incumbent upon me to keep celebrating life. Mine, theirs, whatever. Because for reasons known to no living soul, I walk the earth and they do not. And trust me, there are times when I do not know which of us is in a better place.

Today, I was supposed to go to the Pride Festival, walk around the market, scarf down a few more hideously expensive cocktails, come home in the evening with a bag full of frisbees and can cozies and pamphlets and business cards.

Instead, I slept all day, too tired from my tiny bit of exertion. Around 4 in the afternoon, Richard calls, wondering if I am ok.

No, damnit. I'm not. I'm fucking not. I'm angry at the body that will refuse to support my spirit. I am furious at the shell I find myself in, who is suddenly so fragile that its bruised from sitting in a free massage chair from Sharper Image. I am frustrated that so many wonderful things and people are open to me, and I am unable to fully utilize them.
I finally got up, and made it the three blocks to the Civic Center, to get to my car, around six PM. Richard met me at the car, and seemed worried about me. Said I looked shaky. Which makes sense, since I felt shaky. But the air conditioner worked, and the drive home was uneventful. I am invited tomorrow, for the final concert and of course, the market. And I will try to go. But I am so tired, still. So achingly tired. And I wonder if this is not part of my on AIDS process, this descent by degrees. It is, at best, treading water.

And I miss a Jonathan who could do all the fun stuff. I miss the Jonathan who could walk around in the sun all day, then dance all night, then get up and do it again. I miss that exuberance. I miss that passion, that desire. Maybe I will get it back. Maybe this batch of new drugs will take. I dunno. I do not know how to ask Richard, to ask Adam, to ask my Mom, to ask anyone.... that one simple request.

Dont leave me this way.