Where I am right now

I guess it would be a good idea to talk about where and how I am right now.  It's been around ten years since I wrote the material that were originally published on positivelite.com.  Since then, I was hired in a really reputable company in Jul of 2014 to apply customer payments to their accounts.  In the accounting world, those folks are called Cash Applicators.  I believe my starting salary was $39k.  I remember how excited I was, posting on social media that it'll change everything for me.  And it did.  It was the most money I've ever made at that point.  A year later, I bought a house with my parents and sister in the North York neighbourhood of Toronto.  I was so excited that I slept at the house on the night that we closed the deal and I got the keys from the realtor.  I slept on the floor of the living room, haha.

A year later was when I wrote my third contribution to positvelite.com, about my thoughts on the 2016 Pride parade.  I befriended a really nice person at my job, who was responsible for the general accounting of the firm.  She inspired me to restart pursuing my accounting designation dream.  I applied, and got accepted at the B.Com program at Laurentian University, hoping to fulfill the undergraduate requirement of the CGA program.  It was around that time that the three main accounting designations in Canada amalgamated together to form the CPA professional designation program.  This meant that I had to transition from a CGA student to a CPA candidate.  The transition was mostly painless.

In retrospect, I would say that the 2016 Pride parade definitely radicalized me.  I immediately started following and getting connected with social justice activists all over the world.  It was through them that I learned about the NoDAPL movement in North Dakota.  When I learned that there was going to be a rally being organized around Nov of 2016 in Toronto, I messaged one of the organizers to ask if I can help.  They invited me to attend an organizing meeting being held at the Aboriginal Legal Services on Yonge Street.  That's where I met P and P, two Aboriginal women who, that night, asked me if I could help organize the donations and volunteers for the rally.  There were thousands of people who attended the rally (see a video here).

After the rally, P and P kept in touch with me, and they both eventually invited me on Jan 2017 to come on board and join them on their project to bring the first Healing Lodge for Indigenous women in Ontario who come into contact with the colonial justice system.  I worked with them as a volunteer board director, where I managed their donations and assisted them in getting their charitable status.  I was with them for about a year before I met M, my now husband, through Scruff.  My love for M is a subject of more blogs to come, but let me just say that I love this person very much.  I didn't know it was possible, but my affection for him has only grown as the years go by.  He and I have had challenges, and we've definitely both needed to work on our communication skills.  But, thankfully, after a lot of hard work, he and I are in a good place right now.

I eventually left my work with the Healing Lodge, but only to pursue volunteering for organizations that's closer to home: filipino-centred non-profits and charities based in the GTA.  I also left my employment with the firm that hired me back in 2014, and eventually found gainful employment with a Canadian firm that's been in existence for around 130 years, working as their corporate accountant, with a focus on organizational cash, taxes, and capital asset management.  I eventually graduated from my B.Com program, which I then traded for an MBA at the same institution.  I'm in the final stages of my CPA designation, but I'm facing some challenges clearing the final hurdle: passing the Common Final Exam (CFE).

I am now on a really good HIV med called Biktarvy.  I'm also still taking Risperidone to manage my over-active mind, and also taking Trazadone to help me sleep.  I go to the gym quite regularly, and also have sex quite regularly, both with M and with my other buddies.  It's always fun to wfh because M and I would do the deed at around lunchtime, haha.  And I wfh two days a week.  We'll be heading to Singapore together next year to visit his family there.  It'll be nice to be back and spend some quality time with them.  My goal right now is to take Mandarin classes, so that I can better communicate with his family, especially with Mummy and Papa.

My recovery journey is a subject for future blogs.  What I can say is that it's interesting how years and years of experience adds wisdom to the person who's going through it.  And, sometimes, that wisdom is put into good use, and, sometimes, it's deliberately dismissed by none other than yours truly.  That's not to say that there's no more for me to learn.  Because, I think I haven't even scratched the surface of what I can learn, not just about my recovery journey, but life, in general.  My relationship with crystal has definitely changed over the years, and I'm hoping that I can explore that relationship in a deeper manner through this blog.

All this to say that, having just turned 43 years old this past Oct 15th, I'm just getting started.  But, before I go further, it's important for me to look back.  To this end, I will be posting a series of vlogs that I made between 2013 and 2015.  I had kept them private and never showed to anyone, except M.  He watched them very early on in our relationship.  I will have to figure out how to edit the videos to cut out names that I mention.

Thank you for reading this far.  This blog may well be chaotic and messy, but I hope that it can help me make sense of the world around me.  I will approach this blog with lots of curiosity and openness.

Trick or treat?

When you miss your office's Halloween social because you have to wfh...gotta make do

Reposting my 3rd written material that was published on positivelite.com

I wrote this reflection on my experience volunteering at Toronto Pride Parade in Jun of 2016.  It was the year that BLM:Toronto stopped the parade until Pride Toronto agreed to their list of demands.

Another blog post will follow in the coming future where I discuss my own thoughts about this written material.  It's important for me to be honest about my views on the same issue now because they've moved.  For instance, I'm no longer as willing to entertain "both-sides arguments" as I was in this 2016 reflection.  I am, at this point, unapologetically, and unreservedly, taking the side of BLM:TO.  That's not to say that my position lacks critical self-flection and or any inward questioning, because, of course, it does.  I'm just unwilling to give up any ounce of space in my mind and body for the tools and logics of the colonizer.

I wrote this under a pseudonym, Miguel Torres

***

My experience at this year’s Pride parade in Toronto

"In a large number of societies, being brown still means occupying that middle space, on the cusp of whiteness and on the edge of blackness." Kamal Al-Solaylee, Brown.

I signed up as a volunteer for the Sunday’s Pride parade in Toronto two days after the massacre in Orlando.  News reports came out that there were some who feared joining the festivities this year.  That didn’t sit well with me.  I’m a part time student and I was registered to two university courses this summer.  Working full time and being deeply involved in my family left very little time for much else.  But I thought setting aside six hours on a Sunday to help at the parade was the least that I can do this year.

My shift started at 9 am.  To my surprise, I was not given a supervisory role even though I had indicated in the volunteer registration form that I wanted that role.  This wasn’t my first time volunteering as a parade marshal.  My past experience, I thought, qualified me to lead.  Instead, my supervisor was a young white woman.  I didn’t even realize she was my supervisor until I started asking around among the other volunteers.  She didn’t introduce herself to anyone new who showed up.

We were assigned to the vehicle float staging area along the Rosedale Valley.  Another Pride volunteer gave my supervisor the list of the floats.  When asked if she knew what to do with the list, she said she didn’t.  They gave her instructions to divide the floats among the volunteers.  I gave her a pencil since she needed one to write with.

There were several other volunteers I had met that day.  I also got to know the people at the floats.  Meeting new people is probably one of the best things about working at the Parade.  You get to know people in the community.  People who are part of NPOs.  These NPOs serve the community as a whole.

I also ran into a co-worker.  That was interesting.  I smiled when I saw him walking towards me.  I got nothing from him.  He just walked past me.  This is a guy that I’ve seen at the office again and again.  He and I have never had any real interaction at work since he started over a year ago.  I realize that we can be busy at times, and so we can keep our head down and not engage with other people.  But I personally try to acknowledge everyone at work that I may walk past.  We’re on the same boat, after all.  Simply nodding or smiling at someone is the least I can do.  But there seemed to be a wall between this dude and I.  The only differences he and I had, as far as I could see, was that he is white and I’m Filipino.  He has a corner office, and I have a desk in a space I share with a few others.

So imagine my surprise when I saw him from afar.  He and I were at the same parade.  Very cool.  He was going to be riding at one of the biggest floats representing a big social media company, and I was a volunteer.  Same parade, different ways of involvement.  But I got nothing from him.  There was even a point where we were a mere few feet from each other, waiting in line at the portable washroom.  He saw me and he turned his back.  Did not turn around the whole time.

A smoking hot fuck buddy was also marching that day.  He said he wanted to give me a big kiss when we meet at the parade.  I thought it was a great idea.  Two Asian guys making out in the middle of the parade was exactly what I wanted.  Certainly not something I’ve ever done before.  The thought of me, an HIV positive person, being kissed in the middle of the parade was nice.

Two of the volunteers I had met told me that they really wanted to leave their position and go to the Liberal party float.  I told them to let me know first if they did leave so that I can cover their positions.  Noon was approaching and I was hungry.  I asked my supervisor what we were going to do with lunch.  Will Pride get food to us, or will we have to go back to the volunteer check-in to eat?  She did not know.  I looked at the radio on her waist and wondered if she knew how to use it.  I gave her my granola bar when she told me that she didn’t eat breakfast and was starving.

Pizza came soon after and was distributed among the volunteers.  As I sat and ate with another volunteer, the owner of a clothing store with a float at the parade came up and started talking to us.  He was joined by a photographer (who, I later found out, is a really good one known to many people).  We shared jokes and stories.  This is what I mean about volunteering: people engaging with you.

Finally, the word came that the parade has started.  All the float drivers were notified and asked to get behind their wheels.  Music blared.  Float riders got into positions.  Slowly, the floats moved forward.

The group of floats I was assigned to were still at the Rosedale Valley when it was time to observe a moment of silence at 3 pm for Orlando.  To be standing in silence among the trees at the Rosedale Valley with other people was eerie.  And incredibly sad, humbling.  Making me remember what I was there for in the first place.  Music and people came to life after the observance.  The parade moved on.

Then it stopped again.  I distributed bottled waters to the parade goers while dodging water guns aimed my way.  Eventually, some of them asked me why the parade wasn’t moving.  I had no radio, and my supervisor was nowhere to be found.  So I walked from the end of the parade to the front where I flagged another volunteer on a bike.  He told me that Black Lives Matter Toronto had staged a sit-in, but it’s been resolved and the parade was about to move shortly.

I took that script and went from every float driver along the parade to let them know what I’ve been told.  I can’t count how many times someone responded with “Will they (Black Lives Matter Toronto) be invited back again next year?”  Again and again, my response was, “We’ll be moving shortly.”

Slowly, the parade did start moving.  As I managed to get one float into the parade, I kept going back to guide the others in to it.  Eventually, the same volunteer who was on a bike told me to enter and walk the parade with a specific float and he’ll stay behind to guide the few floats remaining.  I noticed that the float that I was walking with had a sign that read “Black Spaces Matter.” I asked one person who was riding on the float what it meant.  I’ve heard of Black Lives Matter, but what were “Spaces”?  The woman told me that it had something to do with Black Lives Matter, but, she quickly added, “We didn’t know they were going to do this.”  I simply nodded and kept walking.

My shift was only supposed to be until 3 pm.  I clocked out at 6:30. I told my buddy that I was going to have to take a rain check on that kiss.  I headed home, too tired and exhausted to join in the festivities.  

Tucked in to my bed, I went on social media and read the reports on what happened.  Hijacked.  Ruined.  Spat in the face of their hosts. I thought, “Oh dear…”  Then went to bed.

At work the following Monday, three of my co workers got into a long discussion about what had happened at Pride.  This was an interesting mix of individuals talking about the issue, I thought.  All three are straight.  One white woman, two black guys.  One guy sounded like he was asking a lot of the questions (let’s call him Uno).  The woman (let’s call her Dos) and the other guy (let’s call him Tres) made it very clear that they disagreed with what the black folks did at the parade.

“It inconvenienced a lot of people.  You don’t just show up at someone’s parade and ruin it,” said Dos.

“They’re out of their minds,” said Tres.

“Don’t you think they have a right to stand up for what they believe in?” asked Uno.

“They need to get their own parade,” came the response from Dos and Tres.

I stayed quiet.  I felt uneasy, as if I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know what.  The discussion trailed off and everyone eventually went back to work.

I usually go to the library after work to study and work on my assignments.  But I didn’t get anything done that evening.  I was glued to social media, reading the articles about what had happened.

Tuesday came and I was back at work.  In the afternoon, Tres asked everyone if we’ve read the open letter that the gay police officer wrote to Pride Toronto.

“That’s all that needs to be said!  That’s the only thing that needs to be said about the issue.  Poor guy,” said Tres.

Really?  A white man’s voice is the ONLY one that needs to be heard? I thought.  Heart pounding, I said “I was there working at the parade on Sunday.”

Dos asked, “Were there a lot of people?”

“Yep.  I was only supposed to work until 3, but I had to stay much later because of the sit in.”  I felt nervous.

“See?  There you go.  Even Miguel’s day got ruined.”

I mumbled something about the whole thing being ok, but I don’t think they heard me.  I kept thinking, “That’s it?  That’s all you can fucking say?!”  I don’t know if I was talking to my coworkers or to myself.

I was at a coffee shop that evening, intending to study.  But I could not stop reading what was being said on social media.  All the hate being thrown to the black community was sickening.  Eventually, I watched the video that Black Lives Matter Toronto put up on their social media page.  When Alexandria said, “Don’t boo!  How dare you boo? We fought for you! We threw bricks for you! We got locked up for you!  How dare you?” – I began to cry.  Right there, at the coffee shop.  Tears streamed down.  I stuffed my laptop into my backpack and headed home, still crying.

When I got home, I went upstairs and gave my sister and brother-in-law a big hug.  It felt like I haven’t seen them for awhile.  My three-year old nephew said, “Uncle Miguel busy.”

I gave him a big hug too before heading to my room to rest for the night.

The following morning, I took the opportunity again to speak up when the subject was revisited by the same group of coworkers.  I told them, especially to Uno, about the 1981 bathhouse raids.  I told them about Stonewall, and how black people and people of colour were at the centre of the uprising, and that there wouldn’t be a Pride movement if it weren’t for black folks.  “I didn’t know that,” Uno said.

“They have no right to be deciding who can and cannot march at the parade,” said Tres.

“And you don’t just show up at someone else’s party and do something like that,” said Dos.

“They – we - have every right to do that.  And yes, that white gay police officer’s letter is heart breaking.  His voice needs to be heard and honoured,” I said.  “And, other people’s voices need to be heard and honoured too.  The families of the thousands of murdered and missing indigenous women need to be heard.  The sex worker’s voice need to be heard too.”

Rage.  That’s what I was feeling.  But I maintained my calm by consciously focusing on my breathing.  Speak clearly and calmly, I told myself.  Stay reasoned and open.

I urged them to go look at the nine demands that was agreed to at the parade.  Each and every demand is meant to build a strong and inclusive community, I thought.  Uno seemed surprised that there were actually nine demands.  I pointed out how funny it was that we’re only talking about demand number eight.

“What would happen if we put the most vulnerable people in our community at the centre of the movement?  Would the high rates of violence, homelessness, addiction and disease go down?  It’s worth a try,” I said.

“They’re racists against white people.  They refused to sell their t-shirt to a woman because she was white.  Would they also refuse to sell their t-shirts to my daughter because she’s mixed?  And one of their members tweeted something about white people,” said Tres.

“What did she say?” asked Dos.

“She said she wanted to kill them.”

“She needs to be punched in the throat!” came the quick response from Dos.

Or slap her.  Or kick her.  Or, better yet, lynch her!  Isn’t that what we do around here?  I wanted flip my desk and scream.

Remember all of the times when Dos lent you a hand when you couldn’t keep up with work.  Remember when she laughed the hardest at a joke you made two weeks ago.

“Nothing will happen.  Even other Black Lives Matter organizers criticized them for what they did at Pride.  They’ll fail and they’ll look like idiots,” said Tres, a statement laced with derision.

I smiled and said, “Well, this queer person of colour will show up at the town hall.  I’ll be there!”  I was fired up and could’ve continued talking about it longer.  But we all needed to get back to work.

There is another co-worker who sits beside me.  She has stayed out of the conversations throughout the week.  She’s my counterpart in the company.  We have the same job title.  She trained me and, for the better part of my first year working at the company, worked closely with her.  We didn’t always get along.  Different ways of doing things caused friction between us.  But, for the past year or so, she and I have grown very close to the point where we’re now part of each others’ social media network.  We finish each other’s sentences and we can shoot each other a certain look and would start laughing from an unspoken inside joke.

The subject of superiority based on skin colour came up during one of our chats the following Thursday.  I had told her that the LGBT community can sometimes be divided between different lines.

“Wait a minute, does your community have…hierarchies?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“So you’re saying that you’re fighting the same battle that I, as a black woman, has to fight against?” her voice rising.

I leaned closer and said, “Last Sunday made me realize that, buddy, we’re the same…”

“Same?!”  She was visibly shocked.  She looked like I just splashed her face with ice-cold water.

“Oh my god…I need tissue…” She got up from her chair and raced to the washroom as tears came.

Oh great…that’s just great.

I made another woman cry.  This time, it wasn’t because of my devastatingly good looks.

I followed and stood at the hallway just outside of the washroom to wait for her.  When she finally came out, we hugged each other before going back to the office.

“I don’t know why I’m so emotional,” she said with a laugh.

“That’s exactly how I’ve been feeling the past couple of days.”

Outrage was what I felt that Thursday night as I watched the murders of Alton and Philando on social media.  This time, the murders felt personal.  Very personal.

Then, Dallas happened.  For the first time since I last used crystal, I went to bed in fear.

I woke up Friday morning and started bawling even before I got up.  I felt the effects of lack of sleep from the last several days.  I felt the effects of sadness, exhaustion, disillusionment, and despair.  I emailed my manager telling her I couldn’t come to work that day. It was my first sick day for 2016.  I called my counsellor at ACT for a session.  Thankfully, Fridays was drop-ins.

The dinner table at home has become a space for all kinds of conversations with my family.  Luckily, we all be.  Our dinner table serves as a space for those opinions to be challenged, questioned and fought for.  It’s where my mom would tell us about what it was like to be a nanny in the early 90s.  It’s where my dad talked about being accosted by drunk people at a downtown Toronto park.  It’s where I told the story of when a homeless man on Yonge Street called out to me and said, “Yo, Jackie Chan!  Got $0.50?”  It’s also where we expressed our concerns for terrorism as Canada opened its doors to more refugees and immigrants.

Go ahead and read that last sentence again.

A fellow Asian friend recently asked me if I’ve ever faced discrimination.  Aside from minor incidents here and there, I think that my situation is actually not so bad.  I’m good.  Call it my Filipino privilege.  I’m thought of as hard working, obeys rules.  As much as I think of myself an idiot who barely knows what he’s doing in life, at least I don’t get stalked by the police, despite what my psychosis kept telling me during my years of crystal use.  I know and believe that I have self-determination.  I’m the one running my own show.  But many many many others do not have the same experience.  This year’s Pride taught me that that is my problem too.

It is my problem because I share a lineage with many people, including those who are criminalized.  Those who are violated.  Those who are over-policed.  And yes, I also share kinship with those who stalk the most vulnerable.  Those who close their doors to the needy.  Those who stay unmoved for fear of rocking the boat.

I stan Anok Yai

Truth is, it's Anok Yai's world, and I'm just living in it.

I just saw Anok's interview on the Sherrie Show.  I've been following Anok's IG for years now, but I didn't know she was studying biochemistry in uni!

Perfection.

Sammy flips!

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The Day I Stood Up

Below was my second written material that was published on positivelite.com.  I wrote it as a continuation to the first one that was previously published on the site.  I thought it was important to explain how I managed to abstain from meth by that time, which was around August of 2015.  By the time that it was published, I would've been over a year sober, because my last use at that time was around Jun or Jul of 2014.  I'll write more about what was happening to my life around the middle of 2014 that provided a conducive situation for sobriety, at a later time.  For now, here's what I wrote on positivelite.com.

I'm adding #bestfriend-A as a tagline for this entry to highlight that the friend I write about in this entry, the one who volunteered with me at the Pride Parade, was my best friend "A", someone I have known since junior high in the late 90s.  She's someone I admire for their individuality, kindness, wisdom, and humour.  She's one of the people who always made sure I was included within her circle of friends, and defended me from anyone who was ever mean to me in junior high and high school. Love you, A!

I wrote this under a pseudonym, Miguel Torres

***

The Day I Stood Up

 

Contributor’s note:  This is a follow-up to my first contribution which was first published here on positivelite.com on August 19, 2015.

 

There’s a point in the video for the song “Not Ready to Make Nice” by the Dixie Chicks where all three members stand up in unison and dust themselves off.  Whenever I remember June 28, 2014, I also remember that image of a person dusting himself off.  It was the day I last got high on crystal.  Here’s the full story of what happened that weekend:

I had been getting high for days.  After shooting up and, later on, jerking off to porn, as was my ritual, I got up from my chair Saturday night, turned off the computer and went to bed.  I woke up Sunday morning to find out that I was late for my volunteer shift as a parade marshall for the Toronto World Pride parade.  I had several missed calls from my friend with whom I had volunteered with.  I quickly showered and took the subway to the parade staging area.  Of course, i made sure to cover up my track marks with make-up before I left.

This wasn’t the first time my friend and I had volunteered for Pride.  When I first came out to my friends in the early 2000s, volunteering for Pride was something I got to do with them.  It became sort of a tradition.

So throughout the afternoon, she and I herded participants into the parade.  At one point, I received a text message from my sister-in-law asking how the parade was going.  I responded by inviting her, my brother, and our parents to come out and join in the festivities.  My family and I have lived in Toronto for 20 years, and I’ve been out as a gay man to them for the last 15, but I’ve never had the pleasure of experiencing Pride with my family.

My friends were different.  They supported me from the time I came out to them.  We’ve gone to a number of Pride celebrations over the years.  This time, I was really hoping that my family would come join in.

But to my dismay, they didn’t come.  I thought, “This is the problem.  This is what I need to deal with.”  If I wanted to move on from my addiction, I needed to address what was really bothering me.  I come from a very religious background.  I grew up in the Philippines attending a Baptist church.  My family used to say that I should be a Pastor when I grow up since I can recite many Bible verses.  I was a good christian boy.  

Like many filipino immigrants in Canada, my family found kinship with others in a filipino congregation.  Growing up gay and a devout christian in a new country wasn’t easy.  For years as a teenager, I believed that I sinned every time I had thoughts about other guys.  It wasn’t until a year after my HIV diagnosis, in 2007 when a boyfriend took me to one of Metropolitan Community Church’s Sunday service that I realized that it’s possible to reconcile my spirituality and being gay.   Realizing that they didn’t have to be two separate facets of my life was a titanic shift in my perspective.  I no longer needed to choose between the two.

It was also around that time that my family hosted a party at our home to celebrate my parents’ wedding anniversary.  The guests were mostly from the church.  As is customary, the Pastor took a few minutes to say something.  More like a mini sermon.  The only thing I remember him saying to us who gathered that night was that “a marriage is only between a man and a woman.”

What hurt me most was seeing my parents, seated beside the Pastor, were nodding in agreement.  I should have said something.  At the very least, I should have stood up and left.  But I sat there in the audience, in shock.  I couldn’t believe it.  How dare he?  In my own home!  I was pissed.  Although, years later, I realized that maybe I was more mad at myself for just sitting there doing nothing.

The fact that my family still went to a church that did not welcome people like me, hurt.  I thought that they were siding with strangers, rather than standing tall and proud with me.

And so, whenever I got high, my mind would think about the hurt.  These thoughts repeated over and over in my drug-addled mind while at the same time, I would hallucinate about snakes crawling around me.  Every time.

I was tired of it.  And so after the parade in 2014, I went to my parents’ place.  My brother was also there with his wife.  As we ate at the dinner table, I spoke up.  I told them how I felt that night in 2007 when the Pastor stood in front of everyone and spilled misinformation about what it’s like to be gay.  I told them that it didn’t matter to me where they chose to go to church.  What mattered to me was what they thought of me.  Whether I have their acceptance or not.  In that conversation, I tried to explain to them that it wasn’t my choice to be gay, despite what their church preaches.  Yes, there is a contradiction between what their Pastor says about being gay and what I say about being gay.  But, I reminded them that I’m the gay one, and so I asked them, “If you wanted to know how a car engine works, would you go ask a dentist, or would you go ask a mechanic?”

That discussion I had with my family that evening was a rollercoaster ride of emotions.  My brother surprised me that night because he stepped in a number of times in the conversation when it got heated.  Whenever I felt that I wasn’t getting through to my parents, I looked to my brother and sister-in-law for help.  And helped they did.  They would translate what I was saying to my parents in words that my parents understood, although we were all speaking in filipino.

In the end, though, I did get them to understand that it wasn’t my choice to be gay.   There might have been more issues for me to bring up, but I thought it was a good start.  Besides, that was the root of the problem anyway, I thought.  I believed that if they understood that it wasn’t a choice, then all else would fall into place.

I went back to my apartment that night feeling like I was walking on clouds.  It might have been the after-effects of crystal, but I really don’t think so.  I felt that I finally had what I had been waiting for all these years: my family’s understanding.  They finally heard me.  I still had some crystal around in my apartment but I didn’t touch it.  What did I need it for if I already had what I’ve always wanted?  Tired and emotionally drained, I slept like a baby that Sunday night.  No snakes this time.  After ten years of using crystal, I finally had enough.  I flushed what was left of it down the toilet the next day because, at last, I felt at peace.   I stood up and dusted myself off.

Reposting material I wrote back in Aug 2015

I wrote the following article for positivelite.com back in August 2015.  I'm reposting it here because I think it provides context to where I am today.  A part of me cringes when I reread this old material, but I have a soft spot for the person who wrote it at the time.

Positivelite.com was a website that existed back then.  It was a resource where HIV-positive folks and their allies could contribute written material, and have them published online.

I will be reposting several material that I contributed to positivelite.com in the next coming days.  I will also write subsequent reflections on these same entries.

I wrote this under a pseudonym, Miguel Torres

****

My best friend tina

The first time I did crystal was back in 2004.  A trick offered me a hit from his pipe and so my love affair with crystal began.  I had thought at that time that I’ve finally found something I’ve been looking for.  Something that made me relax. Gave me confidence to face just about anything.  The love affair soon turned into a struggle.  My relationships with my friends started to suffer.  I would quit for some time, and then go back again.  Each time feeling guilty for having relapsed.  I graduated from smoking crystal to injecting it about 8 years into my addiction.

I was pretty much high all the time between Aug 2013 to June 2014.  Almost every day of the week, I would rush home from work, have some dinner, then lock myself in my room and inject several times over the course of the night.  I would jerk off to porn in between injecting.  There were many times when I really needed to pee but was too scared to come out of my room for fear that my roommates would see me.  And so, I would just pee into an empty cup.  By midnight, after cumming, I would take a sleeping pill and drag myself to bed to sleep.  While waiting for the sleeping pill to take effect, i would have hallucinations of snakes crawling all around me.  Did I mention I don’t like snakes?  I’m scared of them.  I would leave my night light on because I was too scared that more snakes would come out in the dark.  So I would lie on my bed, trying not to move as snakes slithered around me.  My comforter felt like it was swarming with them.  I felt them on my neck and around my legs.  I would tell myself to just relax, that’s it’s just tina.  Then of course, the sleeping pill eventually knocks me out.  I essentially slept in fear.

I would wake up the following morning to go to work.  The whole cycle starts again.  Within that cycle, I had rituals.  From eating dinner, to taking my meds, to preparing the syringe.  They were all rituals.  How did I not od?  I was very careful with how much crushed tina i put into the syringe.  That’s why I was able to inject several times a night.

I think I was doing so much because I basically gave up.  I had accepted that maybe my life will always involve tina.  Maybe tina is just what I need to get by.  Other people have their own way of getting by.  Tina happens to be mine.  I was going about my life with that belief in my head.  No one seemed to be able to stop me.

Until I showed up one day in June 2014 to my HIV doctor’s clinic for a check up.  When the nurse couldn’t draw blood from the usual spot where they usually draw blood from because my vein was so bruised from overuse, she asked me why it’s bruised.  I admitted that I’ve been injecting.  With a compassionate smile, she said, “I think you need to speak to the Counsellor.”

The Counsellor asked me to take some time off from work, move back home with my parents for  a couple of days and get well.  She looked me in the eye and said, “This has to stop.”

I took her advise.  I didn’t get high for a week.  But then, eventually, I went back to my apartment and back to tina.  I got high for a couple of days, then on June 28, 2014, I stopped altogether.  I guess I just needed a last hurrah.  I didn’t want anyone telling me to quit.  If I was going to walk away from tina, it was going to be on my own terms.

There’ve been many times in the past 10 years when I would try to quit tina, only to take it up again.  Each time, I felt a lot of guilt and shame about it.  I think that that’s what’s different this time.  I may have been saying ‘I quit tina”, but I don’t think that truly captures what happened last year.  I didn’t so much as “quit tina” as I just chose to do other things.  I told myself that tina is an option.  It will always be an option.  But it’s not the only one.

That is what’s different this time.  There’s no shame and guilt around doing crystal.  Whenever I feel like I want to use, If I want to get high, I’ll consciously allow myself to get high.  I do this by taking a deep breath and picturing myself going to my dealer’s house.  I remind myself of the excitement I would feel as I head home to my apartment, stopping on the way at a drugstore to get syringes.  I remind myself of all the feelings I would feel throughout the whole ritual.  From the drawback of the needle when it’s in a vein, to how it feels waking up in the middle of the afternoon two days later.  People in rehab calls it “playing the tape from beginning to the end.”  The whole process takes about 30 seconds.  After that, I would feel exhausted.  Too exhausted to actually get high, and so I go about doing whatever it was I was doing.  It could be pushing paper at work, or hitting the gym, or doing laundry.  Anything.

I had a thought the other day, and it’s likely I’m not the first to put it this way: Remember the phrase “falling off the wagon”?  Well, what if it’s impossible to fall off the wagon?  What if I am the wagon?

Enrique Mudu is one sexy top

 

Click here to watch the sexy top guy Enrique Mudu fuck with his big dick

My blog description when I first created it

I've updated my blog description to something I'm more comfortable with.  But I'd like to leave what I had originally written on here, mainly because I feel close to that person who wrote it.

"i was born in the phillipines in 1981.  my family came to canada in 1995.  i started writing soon after.  lonely, awkward kid and all that.  i ripped up all my journals this year.  it took me quite awhile as it was an accumulation of years and years of journal writing.  i felt as if i no longer had anything to say.  wasn't interested in writing anymore.  i am still feeling restless and so i am trying this new thing called blogging.  this is mostly for myself."