I am very lovely, but I did not always think so. There were many reasons for my take on myself,  but what it came down to was this. I could not see myself. Many tried to reach me but I was not willing to be seen.  If I could be seen, I could be hurt, yet invisible, I was condemned to loneliness.
            The first day I let in the light, I wept. I wasn’t weeping in pain or out of being hurt. My heart cracked open. And the gush of all there was inside poured out. I couldn’t even think about hiding in this experience. I felt relieved. At last my self imposed exile was over. I could be reached.
            I felt so intensely aware of the ways I can hurt, and yet the sharing of my vulnerability and the connections made, became a souce of inspiration. When I shared my experience other people actually recognized themselves. They opened up to me and I to them. I had never heard about such things, telling my story right out in the open and people cheering.
           I am a hero. We are a heroes. It’s simple. Just share who you really are, inside. How is it that this never occurred to me? If I go back to my old ways, I hope some part of me will remember this moment and pull me back to the possibility of receiving love.

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THE PLACES I FEEL LOVED    (by Charlie)

I feel loved. Every morning I wake up, its the love of God granting me one more day. The first thing I do in the morning. Before I even get out of bed,  I give thanks for God giving me one more day, to meet and possibly help old friends and new people, to bring happiness, hope and love into their world. God gives it to me and I do my best to give it to them.
          I try to be open to everyone, listen sympathetically to their problems. If I can help them solve them, I try. If I can’t, I tell them not to give up hope. I wasn’t always like this. I was very self centered, concerned only with my own feelings, not my effect on other people. I didn’t care if I hurt them. It was all about me and I only changed when I needed a helping hand or a person to be there.
        It was like God reached out from the sky and said look how the world is. That’s when I began to notice and accept people, because in helping them, I helped myself. This didn’t happen overnight.
          Even though I had already been sent home by my supervisor at work on sick leave, I kept saying. I’m going to be all right. I’m going to be all right. I had worked with this group for over twenty years, as a fashion designer. We were like family. I’d go to their weddings and company outings but they always felt I did not attend enough.
          My color was bad. My body was broadcasting but I was refusing to receive the signal. If it wasn’t for the help of friends I wouldn’t be here. A guy who was sitting next to me in a bar I used to go to, the man who became my close friend, was the kind of person who talked a lot to other people, but only occasionally to me.
        He said. “You can’t go on like this. I will pick you up tomorrow and take you to the hospital. ”We weren’t even that close. We went to the same bar, that’s all. A forceful person, he was very gentle to me. And something about the way he spoke to me convinced me that he was right.
          I got so drunk that night, when I got home I just fell out. The next morning, I was dressed and ready. My friend showed up at about 9 am, casually dressed. He had been drinking too, in the same bar, but not with me.
          He drives me to the hospital. We didn’t talk much in the car. But I didn’t give H.I.V. a thought. I had friends around me who were dying of AIDS and here I was still out partying. I was in my early 40’s and I thought I was invincible.
          I get to the hospital, the emergency room, with my friend and a few doctors come in to examine me. They said if I had gone without medical care one more day I could have died. I had no strength. My mind was blank. My white cell blood count was down to 12.
         But for three weeks they didn’t know what form of pneumonia I had, because I had traveled abroad, to China. It could have been a virus. I had also visited India and Thailand during the same period of time. On these were business trips completing my assignments depleted me. But I was so committed to the job, I didn’t want to stop.
        That was 1994. Three weeks later they called the Communicable Disease Council from Chicago, because they couldn’t pin down what this was and why I wasn’t getting better. They had given me all kinds of drugs and I wasn’t responding. Three different doctors looked at my blood work and came to examine me and they all determined that I was H.I.V. AIDS, positive.
            My friend is coming to the hospital to see me every day. He thought he was going to be able to take me home and a month later, I’m still there. And my assistant from work would come  every day to visit me. I never told her or the company that I was H.I.V. AIDS.
          In 1994, AIDS was a relatively unknown disease that people thought they could catch by using the same cup or breathing the same air. I told them that my doctor gave me two options. I could either work or go on disability.
          My health was deteriorating and the nerves and cartilage in my hips had died. My bones actually rubbed together when I tried to walk. If they had not cured the P.C.D. I would have died. I was in tremendous pain.
            My company wanted me to continue to work for them, under the table. I did it, for about a month. They sent a driver to pick me up and bring me to work. And I could work three to five hours. I felt at home. My boss and my assistant showed me how much they thought of me by being there every day. I felt loved and needed. I wasn’t this worthless lump of disease. I was a gifted fashion designer with necessary talent, despite the disease.
            Things kept deteriorating. Now, I’m over 12 years diagnosed and within the last six to eight months I have noticed a deterioration in my overall health and my walking ability that I didn’t notice before.
            After the first year of my diagnosis, I realized I was alive because God had a mission for me. I told my immediate family about my diagnosis.         My parents were in their late 60’s. They only knew what they saw on T.V.  My brother and sister, all of them, coped very well. It was a blessing. They came to my house, constantly  to give me moral and spiritual support. Very few friends remained.
            The friend who took me to the hospital, unbeknownst to me,  had AIDS. He died about five years later. His legacy lives within me. He gave me the gift of understanding how a friend can help you to accept something that is too hard to bear alone
            He went back home when he was getting very ill, to be with his family, but he came over to say, Goodbye, and wish me the best. But he never mentioned once that he had AIDS. Then it was like being a leper. We couldn’t even talk about having the disease, even though he had saved my life. That's where my family came in. I could talk freely about the HIV and how I felt with them. They were more educated because my sister was a nurse and her husband was a doctor.
            I feel very loved. Coming to AFIA makes me feel loved, wanted and needed and has become an integral part of my life. Here, we all share the same disease and problems. You’ll always find someone who had the same problem and will discuss how they dealt with it. I come twice a week.Without this program, I would feel lost.