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Part III - Paradise Lost
December 1997 to March 1998 |
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- January 1st 1998
- Sis had been organising a picnic down in Milsons Pt to watch the fireworks.
At 4pm on NYE she came and sat with me and said she and hubbie and the kids had
been invited to go on a boat in the harbor.. I wasn't invited.. Oh well..
Happens every year... I said it was ok, and that I would find something. I raced
into the office and sent emails out to people trying to get in on a party to no
avail. Then I phoned Sis and found she and hubbie had had a big fight over the
kids and had cancelled the boat trip. Hubbie and the kids had gone to his
mothers. She then went to work. (Sigh.. We really are sisters..) Because she
works in Milsons Pt, I couldn't get there in any reasonable time, so I drove
home. It took 1 1/2 hours to get from Balmain to Northbridge.. It normally takes
me 15mins.
- I then paced up and down my room trying to decide what to do as the traffic
was so bad, I figured a cab fare to the Taxi Club would be $100. At 11pm I
finally stamped me little foot and said 'Bugger it! I will *NOT* stay at home.
Not this time. Not this year..'
- I put on a *very* short skirt, silk top and the 'follow-me- f**k- me' heels
and rang for a cab. To my amazement, not only where they there in 15mins, but
the ride into the city was easy. I guess it was because I was going opposite to
the rest of the traffic.
- I just managed to get upstairs about 15mins before the count down. I got my
champagne and sat against the wall. This guy who looked like he had just walked
off a building site (gray singlet, can of VB etc..) kept trying to engage me in
a conversation, but I eventually managed to get clear with 30secs to go. There
was this really cute guy against the bar and we caught each others eyes.. The
countdown began.. 10..9..8..7.. I got up, straightened my skirt and looked at
him. 6..5.. He smiled and took a step forward. 4..3.. I smiled back and stepped
forward locked in his gaze.. 2..
- Well I almost made it.. The singlet guy jumped me and planted a sloppy,
beery kiss on me and yelled 'Happy New Year' in my face. Yuck, Yuck and Bugger,
Bugger, Bugger. I disentangled myself, wiped the beer from my face and searched
for HIM.
- Rats. It seems at least a dozen others felt the same way. He was swamped. He
glanced in my direction, smiled and shrugged.
- Bastard.. ;-)
- After that it got very, very uneventful. I spent a lot of time talking to
this group who had come up from Bathurst. I'm not tall and not very 'big', and
when the place started to fill up it got a bit hot and claustrophobic,
especially as I didn't have 'someone' with me to keep me from being crushed.
- Then I got bored with the lack of attention I was getting, and started to
leave. As I was at the stairs, I bumped into someone I knew and had a quick
chat. I moaned at her that I was not getting any attention. Her reply:
- "You look just like a girl dear. Guys here seem to want real trannies. Find
the sleaziest outfit you can, slap on the makeup and come back.."
- Bugger I thought. I thought what I had on WAS sleazy. She said I looked like
a normal woman going to a club. Bugger again. Can't go to a straight bar 'cos it
would cause a bit of confusion for some poor lad 'cos I '..look just like a
girl...' and can't go to the taxi club because I '..look just like a girl..' :-)
- But come to think of it, there was one girl there wearing knee high silver
platform boots, what could only be jokingly called a G-string and silver stars
on her nipples. Next to that I could only be described as drab.... Ain't no way
I'm going out in public like that!!! ;-)
- Oh well. At least I had too much to drink...
- Happy New Year!!! My first as the new me!!!
- January 4th 1998
- I'm scared. Really scared. I was coughing and generally feeling very, very
ill and was reading a magazine. It had a very long and involved article about
different STDs and their symptoms. The worse thing is that a lesion has formed
on my tummy and that's scary. We used protection! This can't be happening.
- I have all the symptoms of HIV.
- I have made an appointment to see my GP on Monday for bloodtests.
- I went to the liquor store and bought a bottle of gin and some tonic water.
I then proceeded to sit in my room and cry and get rapidly drunk. If it is HIV,
I will track him down and mutilate him before I kill him. Sis is also worried as
she agrees I have almost all the symptoms.
- January 5th 1998
- The GP is worried too. I cried and explained that I had had only one
'encounter' in 3 years and I was so scared and willing to commit murder. She put
every known bloodtest on the pathology request and told me to go home and rest.
- I won't know until next week.
- January 12th 1998
- The doctor says that I don't have Hep A, B or C and I don't have syphilis.
The HIV results are negative and she doesn't think it's HIV. I watched her face
closely through the tears to see if I could see if she was lying, but I couldn't
tell.
- I have so many pills and potions on my desk it is beginning to look like a
pharmacy. And none of them are working.
- I'm scared and lonely. No-one seems to want to talk to me. I've tried to
call a few people, but they seem to have so much to do, they can't talk.
- January 16th 1998
- My sister had asked me to urgently go with her to lunch.
- I've just come back. She said that although the HIV results are inconclusive
and that at least the cough has begun to clear up. I said that's normal for a
person with HIV. I started to cry and said wouldn't it be ironic that my first
encounter as 'Kim' may be my last before they put a lid on my box and set fire
to it.
- She also said that it could just be stress. I humphed and she continued:
- "In the last six months you have lost your wife, your kids, our parents,
brother and your income. You have no place to stay except our house so you don't
have any private space. You have no close friends. You have no intimate partner.
You're broke as you haven't earned a cracker in that time but are still working
as if you're being paid. You have thousands of dollars of bills and can't pay
them. You're taking medications to change your physical appearance. People feel
uncomfortable around you because of that. You've had to endure going to dozens
of government departments and companies to have your records changed. You have
to endure people being confused when they meet you. You have to endure shop
keepers and people in the street giggling behind your back. The men you speak to
have 30-40 years of experience being men. You have had virtually none.
Conversely you have had 6 months experience as a woman and you are speaking to
woman who have had 30-40 years of experience as a woman. So tell me again that
you can't possibly be stressed.. The horrible thing is that you have the sheer
strength to keep going when anybody else would be gibbering in a corner.."
- I sat and looked at the lunch she had bought, the packet of cigarettes she
had bought me, the wine, and the twenty dollars she had given me for paying for
my car at the carpark and felt my insides collapse.
- I then pulled myself up and suggested that I should stop waiting for the
'dream' job with her that has been postponed for the last five months and get a
contracting job where I can work from an apartment and not make people
uncomfortable.
- "Don't you dare f**king withdraw! We've both had a shitty life and I can't
even begin to understand the kind of pain you've had to live with, but if you
dissappear into a box and ask for sandwiches to be pushed under the door, I will
personally come round and beat the living sh*t out of you. You've come too far
down this track to just give up. I want you to go to the GP on Monday and take
her advice and go on anti-depressants. Also you've repeatedly said that trying
to find someone who can accept you as you and be intimate with you is like
finding a needle in a haystack. Well, give up searching and BE the needle you
stupid bitch. Hiding in a room won't make someone come round and declare undying
love!"
- I went home. I cried. For the first time since I started down this path I
feel defeated. For the first time in my life I'm confortable with who I am and
no-one else is. I'm lonely and old and tired and scared. I once wrote that this
process was like free-falling and it seemed that the ground would never arrive.
Well now it has.
- I am not going to stop this process. But I think the life has been knocked
out of me. Tonight I went to the 'net and searched for support. It wasn't there.
I am truly alone. So many of them had started in their twenties and look
gorgeous and have been on the program for years and don't seem to have had quite
the same issue I'm having. I am truly an outsider. I can see now that my faint
dream of fitting in at some point and just being happy with other people is
exactly that. A dream. I'm 10,000 times happier than I was 'before', and I guess
I have to get used to the idea that this is as good as it gets. Reality bites.
- This section is called 'Paradise Lost'. I am beginning to think that there
won't be a section called 'Paradise Regained.'
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