Monday Reflection: Friendship and Love...

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about love and friendship and where people fit into our lives. It seems to me that we fall in and out of love and in and out of friendship at the drop of the hat. And I wonder if the quickness of our dissolution means that what you had was just a resemblance of friendship and love rather than real friendship or real love. Or maybe, as the saying goes, “People are in our lives for a reason and a season.”

I remember when I first went public with my HIV status, I had been living in secret for almost seven years and many friends were shocked that I had weathered the storm by myself for so long. There was a commitment from many in my political world that they would stick by me no matter what, but very few did. With the exception of  Dr. Keith Jennings, he never wavered a day. He works abroad mostly and he never fails me. To this day, I get international calls from him in some faraway place. Sometimes he’ll purchase his ticket back to the US on a Chicago route so he can, “See for himself,” as he put it, that I'm "doing ok.”  When he's out of the country, without me ever asking, he’d have his brother drop a check in the mail, just to help me keep things afloat. I’d ask, “What’s this for?” He’d respond, “Just a little something to help you out until your speaking gigs pick up.”

Barry Saunders was like that also, right up to the very last day he lost his battle with lung cancer. He would fly to Chicago just to spend the day with me. He had my back and best interest, good, bad or indifferent. If it made me happy, he would come along for the ride and be there to celebrate the victory at the end of the race or nurture me back to health at the end of the crash. He was a hell of a friend, For Real... And for the record, years later, I still miss him so much. Sometimes I find myself saying, “I’ve got to tell Barry this.” And then I remember he’s watching over me. No need to tell him what he already knows. What’s interesting, year after year, season after season, Keith's and Barry’s friendships never altered one bit. They never disappeared!

I believe that God filled my void of Barry with Luther. I don’t know why but my friendships with men tend to be pressure free and long lasting. That is until I met Alicia, she is the most non-judgmental, easy going female friend I have ever had up close in my life. She is constant like the stars in the sky. Sometimes she burns bright and sometimes her light is dim, but it is always there and always unconditional. And like with Barry she is always there for the ride...

This much I know for sure. At the height of my popularity, I had more friends than I can count. I remember during that time I had a birthday party and my home was overflowing. Over time I came to the conclusion that some were in my life, riding the coattails of my fame. What an odd thing to latch on to at that time, a woman dying of AIDS. In this same way, I think some were hanging tough so that I wouldn't have to die alone. That was admirable, but I didn’t die. But their purpose in my life died.

And yes there are those who  have dropped out of my life because of their life circumstance and then at just the right time, they drop back in. Sometimes it's a day in a year and other times it may be for years. In those times, I’ve learned to meet people where they are at rather than where I want them to be. I value what they do and don’t get stuck or foster resentment on what they don’t do. Yes, we want people to love and support us like we love and support them. But I’ve come to learn over the years that some people just don’t know how to. Your situation does not change who they are.

Then there’s love. I don’t have much to say except, I’ve never understood how a person can just stop loving a person. I hear it all the time, "Yeah, I used to love him." But maybe your love is just a strong like. A preference or a pleasure that can change on a whim.   Or maybe there were conditions on how you felt, and once those conditions were no longer met, then you no longer felt that way. Maybe you confused caring with loving... There may be many explanations people give for no longer loving a person.

But what I know for sure, in my own life, to be in love with someone touches the inner most part of the self. It becomes a part of you just like the beat of your heart. Maybe you will never fully understand that falling out of love is impossible until you have actually fallen in love. When you fall in love it is without conditions. Unconditional love is constant; it knows no time, distance or circumstance. Sometimes we get in the way of God’s plan for our life, and what should have been gets frozen in time. But with true love it can be thawed in an instant...

Recently, my girlfriend Josephine told me that her parents went their separate ways after she was born because of circumstance and now after 50 years of separation, they are finally getting married. Case in point... Now that is love... I’m not sure where I’m going with all of this. But other than making my Tweet-Up around HIV/AIDS a success, love and friendship have been the two most pressing things on my mind and heart. I just wanted to share some of my thoughts. When I really think about it all, I'm grateful to have lived long enough to have had these profound experiences of love and friendship. I know that all of these things have made my life complete.

Post Script: Do I have friends that were not mentioned in this blog, of course I do... As with all my blogs, I write where my heart and spirit leads me. This just happens to be where I am at this place in time...