Archive for the ‘reality check’ Category

In Absence of Love

Alone is a simple enough word to comprehend, but for some of us it is a fact of life. We linger in a world without the recognition of our opposite sex and we only find solace in our dreams.

In our dreams, we remember the touch of a woman, but it is only an illusion. When we stir from our slumber, awakening to reality, we are again confronted by how utterly incomplete our existence has become.

In the absence if a female touch; a feminine perspective; a soft voice to soothe the spirit; I do not feel as though I have been deprived of contact with another. I feel as though a part of myself has been removed. I feel naked and afraid.

My logic tells me that it will only be for awhile longer and then all will be restored, but my heart longs for love in such a way that this day, this moment, this very second of suffering may very well last an eternity.

The world may come to an end and I will be left floundering in a perpetual state of solitude.

I pray always that the sun may rise and set swiftly before I turn to stone; that I will look up from my lowly state one day soon to find freedom just over a green hill. The question is not will I receive, but do I deserve the love for which I long. Some of you say no, that I am a criminal and I am in receipt of my requisite fate.

You are entitled to you own opinion, but please reconsider on these grounds. Until you have stood here in my shoes and experienced his life of confinement, until you have felt the immense weight of your very soul reach forth from within in an attempt to tear you asunder, do not pass judgment on me.

Until you have dwelt in absence of love, do not ever wish such a fate on another. Love is too important to the healing process. Love is the only bond that can unite the divided and to force its absence upon anyone, for whatever reason, is to be viewed in my eyes as cruel and unusual punishment.

Jeheshua

What’s your “perfect world”?
LPW

Shifting Tides

I am driven to the edge by feelings of anger and lust which consume me. Filled with shame and guilt, betrayed by a future that may only come to pass as a product of madness. Should such a price be paid that freedom of mind can only be gained by complete and utter denial of that which lies dormant within myself,–that which is innate and vital to the very core of my existence?

• Am I to believe that all I have ever felt must be discarded and forgotten?
• Where is the honor in that?
• What is the truth?

By whose laws do I persist in the world and whose will is it that my unchosen path seems to resist?

If all that is real can only be manifest at the total dissolution of myself then am I insane not to long for some solemn gesture of retreat back into the dream? Should I not loathe my awakening?

Is that not the paradox which faces every man seeking answers in the waning hours of the night? Once awakened to the light, you can never again escape into the twilight like the shadows of the early morning occurring just before the sun is born into the day.

To fight what ‘is’ no longer presents itself as a choice. The rules that governed your progress have been destroyed. You fate is no longer written in the stars. You are free!

Lifting your head up and moving forward is all that remains. Yesterday is gone and you must realize that the keys to tomorrow can only be acquired before the setting of our most local star. Who is it that has lost his way?

Who is it that is crossing the threshold and now sees his path?

Is denying the self for the benefit of the many really all that different from denying the many for the benefit of the self? At the climax of all things, was there truly ever any difference at all?

Our minds foolishly stricken with duality, our perception is flawed. Consciousness could not perceive itself and so we are divided. So, here we are at last. Why?

There is nothing…

But I still don’t understand. Don’t worry, we weren’t meant to understand.

Just be as you are and follow the shifting tides of you mind.

Jeheshua

What’s your “perfect world”?
LPW

How Many

Since 2004, I have been a prisoner and for good reason. I was convicted of two counts of Aggravated Involuntary Manslaughter, for the taking of two innocent lives in a drunk driving accident. I was sentenced and remanded to a prison within the United States Department of Corrections. My earliest possible release will be not be for several years.

As on who has carried the burden of his actions, I understand all too well what I have taken. I have hurt so many people by my ignorance that early morning in the summer of early 2002. For what I have taken I am indebted, not just to the families of my victims, but to all of humanity. I cannot fix what I have done. It is beyond any man to change his past, but my future is another story.

It is for that future that I now write. Every so often I come across a news story about a fatal car crash that involved somebody like me. Every time I wonder ‘could that have been the one that I prevented?’

There are so many young ignorant kids out there who are either unable or unwilling to acknowledge the fact that their actions have consequences. They are unable or unwilling to see the fact that what they do affects others as well. I believe with all of my heart that my story could help to open their eyes, but in my current state, I am unable to reach them.

There are a few things that judges, lawmakers and the general public need to know about most people who commit this type of ‘crime’. This crime is not one which is motivated by malice. Buy the very wording of the charge itself…involuntary etc….one would assume that this concept was a given. Yet despite a persons lack of intention, life is still lost. Our purpose as a society should not be to punish the ignorant, but to insure that this doesn’t happen in the future.

You have to understand that nobody is afraid of going to jail for a DUI. How many people are killed by drunk drivers each year, how many are convicted and thrown into prison and how much does the rate of fatal DUI accidents differ as a result of those prison sentences? You cannot train a dog by constantly beating him. Fear has never bee, is not and never will be the answer to this problem.

The answer is awareness. The answer is in the enlightening of ignorant minds by using the life experience of those who have been through an ordeal like my own. Victims and offenders need to come tighter and use their collective stories to open the eyes of a public that believes, much like I once did, that this is something that happens and to other people.

As long as people believe that they are in control of their own lives and that they are above this type of occurrence, they will never fear the law. Why fear a prison sentence for something which could not possibly happen to you? How does anyone learn the consequences if nobody is there to teach them?

I was 21 years old and I was on top of the world. Nothing could touch me. I could make it home. Why not? I’d done it so many times before. I am them! I’m your child! Don’t you see? Tougher sentences are not the answer. We have to reach the hears and minds of these people by showing them how much pain one mistake can cause. Prison time has not hurt me in the ways that I thought it would. I can deal with living without for a while, but how many people can live without my story and stories like it. Just like the two victims who perished , how many innocent people will die because someone like myself never got to hear a story that could have changed their lives forever” ?

How Many?

Jeheshua

What’s your “perfect world”?
LPW

Manipulation

When I was housed at a major institution, I thought that I had seen it all, I thought that I had encountered every dirty, underhanded trick, ever crooked angle and heard every possible lie in existence, but I was wrong, Now, here at a road-camp for low security level prisoners, I must endure more. So very different in appearance, this place is still so very much the same.

Everything about this place differs but only on the surface. When it comes right down to it, most people that I have met are all right, but there are those who play games. They will try to befriend you–not because they think you are funny or because you have things in common, but because they are in need of your help (so to speak). They are either broke, scared or they believe that they can manipulate you into making their situation better.

There are a few different approaches. Let’s start at the top. One way is to lend you something when you first arrive so that when they ask for your assistance later on, you will feel obligated. Another way is the old “poor me” scam. (This is the one that is the hardest to spot if done correctly). They have soup, but if they only had crackers or if they have soup and crackers, but if only they had some cheese. Then they have soup, crackers and cheese but if only they had a soda. The good ones never actually ask for anything. They just subtly imply and because of your pity, you give what you can.

There are many different ways to use another human being but in the end, the result is always the same. The people who do these things are actors (very good ones at that) They are your friends and associates up until the moment that you find out the truth and for many it is too late. After all, this is a prison and there is not much room for mistakes.

Jeheshua

What’s your “perfect world”?
LPW

Lost Dreams

As the waxing hours of the morning turn into sunlight upon a distant horizon, I am here– alone– in my bed area. It is silent and yet around me, they are breathing softly and as they sleep , they are dreaming. They are dreaming of freedom, a better place to exist, a place so many long for, a place that not a one of us are that close to. They are dreaming of home.

I once experienced such dreams, . Now when I close my eyes there is nothing. This other world– created by the mind– has all but vanished without hope of return. I sometimes wonder if this lack of mental escape is a sign, a prelude to the realization of madness that I am inevitably inching towards.

My questions are many and my answers are so very few. I watch, awaiting harmony up the path which I believe I freely willed from the beginning. Yet at every turn on this road , I find only chaos. I cannot say that life is all a mystery for there are many lessons that I have learned along the way. I have had a great number of teachers but none more prevalent than death.

I have taken life and as a result, I will never be the same. I was forever changed by the event of that night and for my actions I am indelibly carry this weight with me always– but you wouldn’t know it. for a man’s burden in life is not always displayed upon his face like paint on a canvas.

some of us have refined the spectacle of our personal torment so that what was once thunderous roar is now little more than a whisper which trembles aloft a summer night’s breeze. It shames us in silence and leaving us with tears of solitude streaming down our faces.

Our pain is our own and though it appears to be gone to the naked eye it lingers on– haunting us from the grave. Such is fate but I accept that fate and would not change a single day as it occurred if given the chance. If I did, I would lose the wisdom that those events produced and I have a strange feeling that I will need such knowledge for the future that lies ahead.

Jeheshua

What’s your “perfect world”?
LPW

Who is Thom DeLorenzo and why is he here? Because Thom is an activist of the highest order and goes to the mat when he finds a client, a cause or something that is of great import to him. Here’s a bit about him and then his essay. Read more about him at the end of this piece.

Thomas DeLorenzo

Until just a few years ago, Thomas DeLorenzo never would have believed he could become an HIV/AIDS activist. Before he was “officially” diagnosed with HIV in 2001 — with 60 T cells and a viral load of 300,000 — Thomas had been living in denial. And until 2006, he was too busy dealing with the many side effects of his own HIV meds to think about helping anyone else. Then he and his doctors finally figured out the perfect med combo — and for the first time in many years, Thomas felt, that he actually had a future..

I was not always this outspoken with my status. In fact, in the beginning, I was incredibly fearful. I knew I had AIDS well before the doctors made it official. I was living in denial not stupidity. I knew that when you lose as much weight as I did and you are eating McDonald’s pretty much every day, something isn’t working right. I knew that the sheets were not supposed to be wet every morning from my never-ending night sweats. I knew all that — but I still did nothing about it.

I like to say that I didn’t make a move until I felt comfortable with my insurance. Being self-employed, I get the privilege of buying my own policy, making me vulnerable for cancellation at the insurance company’s whim.

I tell people I didn’t use my policy for the first year in fear of being cancelled for a pre-existing condition, but what really happened was I was just too scared to confront the truth. I had seen it all before and still was in complete disbelief that my body could actually betray me like this. I mean, didn’t we have some unspoken bond, that if we worked together, we would be better off?

Apparently my body didn’t get that memo.

Instead, I lied to everyone around me as to how I lost the weight, become gaunt looking, and just slowly removed myself from the social scene. As a publicist, you are expected to go out all of the time. I could barely make it through the day, much less spend the nights at endless events, and typically I would head straight to bed after work for what was only going to be a few minutes, turning quickly into the entire night. I would miss meals just because I was too tired to get up to do anything about them.

I finally opted to go and visit my long time therapist, Laura Morris. I just blurted out simply, “I am sick.” Being the Jewish mother she was, she instantly clung to other reasons than that elephant I had now sitting in the room with me. Instead of giving me advice, she simply shared her news — her breast cancer recently returned for the third time and she was in the middle of chemo treatments. I had my first survivor buddy.

Initially, I would just sit in my apartment crying, and not doing anything about what was going on. And I just kept getting sicker. At one point my father said, “Are you okay?” and I lied and said I was fine, knowing full well what was going on in my body.

Christmas that year would be a challenge, for I could barely make it through the day. I had made this bargain with myself that I would get through the holiday and I would immediately find a doctor in Los Angeles and begin treatments. I was home, and it was December 26th, 2000, and I was having AIDS symptoms as if it were 1988 all over again. I was underweight by 25 pounds, experiencing spiking fevers and rarely made it off the couch, much less out of bed. I remember praying to God, to have him give me an appetite in Christmas Eve, so my family would not notice that I was hardly eating now.

I somehow found the nerve to attend my 20th high school reunion, in spite of the fact I looked horrible. I kidded myself with the fact that I was able to fit into smaller pants than I did in high school. Never mind that at that point I weighed what I weighed in high school — something a man who was 38 should not exactly be able to say. I look at pictures of myself from that evening and just wonder what I was thinking. But yet I knew what I was thinking — I thought I was going to die soon and this would be my last chance to see these people ever again.

I finally made it back to Los Angeles and began the promised hunt for a doctor. With it being between the holidays and having only a few brain cells now fully functioning, I had a difficult time finding a doctor. I finally caved and called a friend and asked for help. I told her I was sick. She said I probably had the flu. I said, “No.” She paused.

Prior to that I honestly didn’t think I deserved to be saved, that I had caused this to happen and I had all of this and more coming to me. I thought that people would run from me and that I would become this social pariah, alone and unloved. It was only when my back was against the wall that I reached out for help.

The first doctor’s visit at Cedars-Sinai, on January 3, 2001, was, well, rather odd. I was completely scared to go alone, or be left alone at any part, and insisted that a friend come with me. This friend is a child television star. She was incredibly supportive, but everyone recognized her. It kind of made for an awkward tone for something so serious. In fact, when my blood was being drawn (for the very first time so I was horrible at it), she was busy signing autographs. It was completely absurd. My advice — don’t bring a public figure to such dramatic moments in your life.

The doctor immediately told me what I had feared so much hearing, that I was most probably HIV positive based on my wasting, no appetite and very noticeable thrush. But the doctor completely missed two major points — that I had PCP [pneumocystis pneumonia] and that “thing” on my face was KS [Kaposi's sarcoma]. He insisted that he was a KS expert and it was not KS. I would find out he was completely wrong a few weeks later, after the PCP he insisted was not there either was finally out of my system.

A week later, on January 10th I was supposed to return to the hospital for my lab report, but I felt absolutely too weak to move. I called my doctor who gave me my laboratory results on the phone: I had AIDS: my CD4 was 60 and my viral load was 300,000. My doctor instructed me to come to the emergency room immediately. A friend picked me up and I was diagnosed with PCP in the emergency room. They admitted me and I was hooked up to intravenous Bactrim. It turned out to be a dramatic rescue. After I had stabilized, my doctor told me that I had been very close to dying. If I had stayed home, I would have lasted only two to three days more.

After a two-week stay at Cedars-Sinai, I finally found the courage inside me to fight this disease and move on with my life. Actually I can pinpoint the very moment — it was after I told my mom. The second you tell your mother you have AIDS; everything is all downhill from there. I started immediately to make calls to everyone in my life that had to hear it out of my mouth first. That had to be the moment I took control of my virus.

Many doctors’ visits followed. I ended up with a situation they had never seen before — it now has a name Immune Reconstitution Inflammatory Syndrome, (IRIS) — because no one had been to the brink and had come back like this before. At least not in 2001. They didn’t see PCP and KS anymore. I became a textbook case and was poked and prodded by every intern Cedars could find in Los Angeles County.

There was a moment in March that reminded me of why I fought. It was when I met my second nephew for the first time. He was born as I was flying home to see my family. I just held him in my arms and thought, “My God, I almost didn’t make it to meet you. I came so very close to not greeting you into this world.” He was just coming into this world, and I came so very close to leaving it just a few weeks before.

Now, I have amazing health, can’t keep my mouth shut about my struggles with HIV, am constantly looking for ways to help others with HIV that do not have the advantages I have — it’s a complete turn-around. I am about to do something few people attempt to do at my age, much less people with AIDS — I plan to attend law school in Fall of 2010. The idea is to study health policy law and take my activism further and get a chance to make more of a difference for many, many more people.

AIDS has taught me much. I would have never guessed that something so very horrible would have turned into an amazing experience, but it really has. It has defined the man I am today, and I like the person I am becoming. I have traveled many roads that people with immune systems don’t get a chance to — good and bad. And I am no longer that scared, insecure boy from Schenectady, New York.

Activists are definitely made, and are not born.

Now Thomas works as a producer and publicist in the entertainment industry and has been widely recognized for his HIV/AIDS activism.

In 2006, the New York Times named him an Unsung Hero in the Fight Against HIV/AIDS for his Christmas Goody Bag Project for the residents of the San Antonio AIDS Foundation Hospice; and in 2008, Thomas was the Foundation’s Angel of the Year. Recently, DeLorenzo’s alma mater, Hofstra University, named him Alumnus of the Month for his work on behalf of people living with HIV/AIDS.

DeLorenzo is the final stages for the launch of his website, SwagforGood.org, where he can continue his Christmas Gift Project for other AIDS hospice patients throughout the country, such as Joseph’s House in Washington, D.C. DeLorenzo will also be the opening speaker for the Hofstra University’s Pride Network launch event on December 2, 2009.

When not reading or prepping for the LSAT, DeLorenzo writes about the need for a national health care plan from a person with AIDS point of view for the Huffingtonpost.com. His personal life includes lengthy discussions on great works of literature with his favorite accountant

Currently DeLorenzo is putting together his annual goody bags for the AIDS hospice and is seeking donations of items that would be as helpful and uplifting to these patients. If you have a company, brand, store or project that would like to contribute to this effort, please reach out to Thomas DeLorenzo here

LPW