World AIDS day

It's interesting. You can talk about something - a disease, a cause, - anything - and it doesn't really sink in until it hits someone close to you. We talk all the time about giving money for this or that or helping find a cure for this disease or that one, but they always seem like something that affects other people, not people that you actually know - just other people.

My husband recently, through a social networking site, caught up with an old friend. You know the type, you hang out with them for a while and then they get busy, you get busy and pretty soon it's a couple years since you've spoken to them. While catching up with S. online, my husband found out that since we've last seen him, S. has contracted HIV. This news totally shocked me. I mean this is the first person that I've known that has HIV. It's very surreal to me. S. is a young good looking guy, he's going to grad school, has his whole life in front of him, and HIV. This is the first time that this disease isn't "other people" to me, and I don't like it. It was so much easier to deal with (or not deal with) when I didn't have a face to put with the disease.
I mean, I can watch RENT and sing and dance around to La Vie Bohem, and think what a great story. But it never really got to me that just about everyone on there had HIV and is going to die (I like to fast forward through that part). Maybe it's the fact that S. is so "normal" and could be anyone on the street that's been getting to me.
I want to scream, I want to be mad, I want to yell at him for not being careful, I want to go in and rip the disease from him, I want to make him chicken soup and wrap a blanket around him, I want to stop the tears that are rolling down my cheeks as I write this.

But I can't do any of that. All I can do is support a long lost friend, enjoy his company and friendship and try to remember that these things don't always happen to "other people"

Happy World AIDS day.