Limit who?

In the post entitled, “The day that changed my life” I talked about the day that I was diagnosed with HIV back in 2008.

I talked about how this guy named Northeast and this weird ass nurse let me in on the fact that I had this virus.

I told y’all that I would have to tell about the rest of visit at another time.

As I promised, here it goes …

So, my 20 year old brown self was sitting in this country ass health department, in this raggedy ass room with these two strangers who just told me my HIV test came back positive.

One, was an older white male (representative of the health department)

And the other was a younger white lady nurse.

I was uncomfortable.

AND now I was HIV positive on top of that.

But I had questions.

Through the snot, tears and everything else I needed to know some shit.

So I went for the nurse.

She would be my first taste at what it would be in the real world.

You know, the limitations they would try and place on me.

She held such a great responsibility as she would sort of set the tone for how I would interpret my new diagnosis.

You know, she’s a lady. I figured that would be where I could look for the compassion and understanding I needed in that moment.

Puh leeeeeaase!

Anyways,

I ask her,

Can I have kids?

Mannnnn.

I wish you could have been there.

Cus she gave me this one look of apprehension.

One that is a little difficult to explain.

One that I deciphered to mean:

Hell no, dummy. You are going to need to have sex to do that. And who is going to want to have sex with YOU?

Like, she didn’t say it but that’s what I felt.

Her response was more like,

Ehhhhhh.

She said it just as slow as she brought her shoulders to her ears while she did.

I guess you would have called it a slow shrug or something.

Who even shrugs at times like this? 😩

She explained that there was a clinic to care for people living with HIV and that they had already reached out to them on my behalf.

She explained that they did not have any available appointments for the next thirty days …

… but they were the ones with the answers.

And she was correct.

(My first HIV-specific appointment will have to be another post. It was awesome!)

I’m sure glad that Northeast was sitting in that room with us that day.

This strange stranger brought hope to the situation.

He said something that I remember to this day.

He said,

If you prayed 12 times a day before, make sure you pray 13 now.

Wow!

Like, how many other things do we have going on at one time and then it seems like life is just like,

BAM! You thought that was tough? Take some more!

Sometimes it feels like a real like whooping.

Tip: We all have these times. That’s why we should hold each other up.

It took a couple days for me to let his words sink in but once they did, my life changed forever.

I learned to pray.

I learned to pray for impossible things.

What not to do: Don’t limit yourself to other’s perception of you.

So yea:

I’ve been praying.

And living.

And doing the nasty since then.

Life. Is. So. Good.

And God has been even better to me and mine.

+ Ci Ci +