dusting off

Atticus said that Jem was trying hard to forget something, but what he was really doing was storing it away for a while, until enough time passed. Then he would be able to think about it and sort things out. When he was able to think about it, Jem would be himself again.

It was the needed paragraph that got me off the hook from reading early morning yesterday. I thought the night was too late for me to continue to finish Harper Lee's book. But it's hard to put down a good book like that unless a universality was lent into words which will wring your head for the dumbfounding truth it evoked. And that was that.

Chapter 26 was fine for the night. I had to stop there. I had to stop not because the clock was warning me but because what Scout quoted from her father (Atticus) about her brother (Jem) resonated an abstraction of reality that I needed to be reminded of, a passage I had to dwell on.

We're not trying to forget things, really. What we're just doing is trudging slowly with life and moving forward for whatever life mess we had. Only time will allow us to heal and muster enough courage to recollect the wounds of our past without our emotions becoming too volatile once again.

As I got off from the kitchen top where I was reading (Yes, weird places where I can find the "spirit" to read), my eyes glanced upon the cartons at the far end of the tiles. Those were my allies. It has been exactly 4 days, 4 Nevirapines, 8 Lamivudines/Zidovudines and 3 isolated signs of rash—that as of writing have already faded—since the day I pledged allegiance to a lifetime commitment of drinking ARVs.

Whenever I get to realize that the meds will be with me for the next decades or until the Good Lord has decided that my name be listed on St. Peter's list, there is a cloud of gloom that hovers above me: It seems that I have to depend on these fistful of pills forever. I know that this is my last ditch effort to pile up another, what?, 10 or 20 or 30 more years in my life. But why does it have to be this way?

In the first place, I sometimes ask, why have I ever let myself reach this stage. I never consider myself sexually active or promiscuous at the very least. My first lovemaking was with my boyfriend of long time ago, very very long time ago. The second one was with "the guy," and he was the first boy that I had sexual encounter outside relationship. He will be the last.

I haven't been around relationships either. Only one boyfriend. So why me? Sometimes I get to conclude that life was blatantly and flagrantly unfair on me. The first time that I had been sexually curious, HIV already got me, while others, they had been served with what? More than what they could chew? And yet . . . sigh.

The ending paragraph has been the proper closing salutation. I know I am trying hard to forget something, to forget that I'm sick when on the surface I'm not. Time. All I need is enough time for me to stow the memories in the abyss of my mind, so that when enough time has passed, I will be able to think about this again. But come that time, I'd be able to sort things out sans the melodrama. When that time arrives, I will be myself again.

I finished the book already. Ms. Lee was no disappointment.