Purple parallel

I was talking with friend and fellow blogger Merlin Purpura and we commiserated over the dire situation of he world right now with the whole COVID-19 debacle. Even though we are in two different continents, we are going through some of the same things (personal distancing, social recusing, sheltering in place, working from home) because shit has gotten serious everywhere. We laughed, we bitched and we talked about mutual friends.

And that's not unusual because that's what we do when we do video conferencing or go on endless text chats. But it was one of our mutual friends (let's call him N) who got a good chunk of our convo this last time. You see, we both keep tabs on our friend because he seroconverted many years ago and we nag him when he is not taking his meds or when he gets too whiny about the things he has to do to stay healthy. Our friend N is a typical Virgo and Merlin and I, representing Leo and Aries cannot take the fuckery laying down. We let him have it when he deserves it.

But our mutual friend did have a point this last time. You see, as an HIV+ survivor, he's seeing a lot of parallels between this pandemic and the AIDS pandemic. The fear, the disinformation, the stupidity, the delay taking it seriously, the deaths. He managed to put his thoughts into words and MP published them in Spanish. I am re-publishing here what he posted because I think it's very valid. Many have drawn parallels between the beginning of the AIDS epidemic and the COVID-19 epidemic and they're not far from the truth. But it really is another thing to read about what somebody who went through it then has to say now. I imagine some messed up form of PTSD is clearly going on. Because this pandemic is obviously stirring feelings in him he thought he had overcome. So here goes my version of Merlin's post:

These current events are making me nostalgic, and not in a very warm and fuzzy way. Quite the contrary. The whole of humanity is living right now the panic that we felt with AIDS.  That moral -and literal- death sentence that had the the stigma of "faggot" attached to it. Many people are not here anymore to tell you the story of watching a friend or a family member die without defenses. But some of us still feel that same viral terror running inside ourselves, transpiring into nighttime anguish. Nights of cold sweats and pain in our bones. 

Everything that happened then seemed to be one more reason to believe you were on your way to death. You felt a sadness that cannot be described, you were terrified of touching and being touched, you feared the inquisitive gaze of somebody who had declared himself judge and jury, even if he was among the stigmatized himself.
Every day you died a little bit. Your dreams collapsed, you feared even taking one step outside. You got used to crying yourself to sleep, you kept silent during more than one maelstrom of pain. 

Little by little, the love of your friends and family seemed to return, and also the caring meetings with many doctors and caregivers. You then realized that what you feared as a death sentence was not given to you in full: the first remedies against the virus appeared. Even though those remedies ran like poison through your blood. Then yo had to face the bouts of depressions, the nausea, the dizziness, the forgetfulness and the desire to let yourself die. At that time dying was what looked like hope, but hope was more threatening than the virus itself. To desist at that point was also a right denied to you, because others would have then accused you of suicide. 

One day, you realized hope was struggling to bubble up: some stubborn dream appeared, a little sprout of desire stirred, the promise of love without a compromise materialized, forgiveness crossed your path offering you a reconciliation of sorts. The medication you were given was already less toxic and whatever was considered until that day miraculous, suddenly sprouted the desire to live. 

I still suffer anxieties and the desire to keep living did not drive away fears, disappointment and misunderstanding. My idols have fallen, my fears continue unabated, but my defenses have returned, and with them the words I have spoken.  And listening to the people I love has allowed me to live -without denying the latent possibility of dying- and it has kept me vital. 

I love you and I wish you the best because you are important to me. I am writing to you directly, this is not a poem, nor a decalogue and most definitely not my epitaph ...

So yeah. It was heavy to read this from him. But it also gave me hope. It game me hope that this emotional and physical quarantine will not last forever. And then there's you, Merlin. And there's N. And there's you, Constant Reader. Then there's you. We are all in this.

XOXO