Sing Out Loud

I love this kid. Why can't we all sing with such passion and innocence?

Why Worry

Over the past few days my friend has managed to sit up and actually get her throat to make out words and sounds. Her left side is still quite weak, but through rehab it looks as if she's going to have good mobility. I am grateful.

Why worry?
There should be laughter after pain,
There should be sunshine after rain,
These things have always been the same.
So why worry now?

I Am Sad

The sadness of the past three days has been a tsunami. I am drowning in this indescribable sadness. Catching my breath only makes me grow crazier. I just want to rip all the breathing and feeding tubes out of her body and hug her. I want to take her to get her hair and nails done and make her look like her old pretty self. I want to hear her voice and her laugh. I want my pain to stop. I want to stop crying.

Accident

I have been in a state of shock for the past two days. One of my closest friends in the world was in a major car accident on Friday. I got a call from her secretary asking me to come to her office and help out. Of course. But I couldn't wait to get out of that office and run to the hospital.

11 hours in surgery. I was crying a lot of that time. I get antsy when I have to sit on a plane for 11 hours, but now my dear friend was fighting for her life. When the surgeon came out, he calmly explained. How her brain had been pushed all the way down to her neck. How her neck was broken. In two places. How the metal plates in her neck would stay with her for the rest of her life. The dreaded question. Was she paralyzed? He wouldn't know until the next morning.

I came home and cried. I cried for so many reasons. I cried because of all the pain she must have been in. I cried because she just had a baby. I cried because I could walk. Because I had a neck that was working. I cried because I felt afraid. I just wanted to crawl into a protective hole and never have to come out and face the world again.

I went to see her again tonight. I had to look for the person in the bed, hidden and covered by all the tubes coming out of her. But the nurse said she had movement in her arms and legs. But that the right side wasn't responding as well as they would like. She couldn't speak. I called out my name. She barely opened one eye. I had to turn away.

My beautiful friend. She has a baby and a husband who need her. If I could trade places with her, I would. Life is so sad sometimes.

What a Day for Yuna and Michelle!

Straight off the bat, two of my favorite sporting figures won today. Yuna Kim, the figure skater, won Skate America with a world-record performance in the short program and then a disastrous (for her) skate in the long. But the combined score was still 13 points greater than the second place finisher. And Michelle Wie finally won her first title on the LPGA Tour through all the noise and criticism of her detractors. How do I tie these two together?

Yuna has been on top of the world for quite some time now, certainly since last March when she won the World Championships for the first time. Since then, the media and her fans have placed a 100,000-pound paperweight on her shoulders called "PRESSURE". Today she succumbed to it. But still she smiled for the cameras during the interview. Good for her. As I have learned all too well in the past six years, you learn so much more from your mistakes than you do from your triumphs. Victory is great but it doesn't force you to reflect. To look at yourself in the mirror and ask what it takes to make yourself stronger and happier.


Michelle, after having won a USGA title at the age of 13, would find herself winless for six years. Until today. What a monkey she gets to hurl off her shoulders. So many people derided her as a fluke, a fake and even a floozy. (People say the stupidest things on the message boards.) But still she trudged on, and now, at the ripe old age of 19, she has a win on the most competitive tour for women in the world. And she beat the top-30 players on the money list doing so. Tuning everyone else out. Ignoring the crap. About how you ruined your life and are not worthy of love. And that's what Yuna needs to do today--let this loss go and not let it block her energy. And just like Michelle, she'll find herself in a better place tomorrow.

2nd UGH! Posting In As Many Days

OK, so let me just sound like a middle school girl for a few days here. Today I was supposed to meet up with someone at 2, someone I met online. I waited until 2:15 without so much as a text message informing me that the date was canceled. I duly left.

At 5:30, I get a text message saying "It's not an excuse, but I just slept all day." I canceled with two other people to meet this person, also HIV+. And I thought all HIV+ people were punctual, courteous, brilliant and handsome. Guess not!

Falling in Love? UGH

I can't believe I am this infatuated over a guy I met exactly twice. He doesn't even live in New York City and he has been happily married for seven years, but now I can't get him out of my head and it is bothering me. Crap. I am still communicating with him, but have no intention of telling him how I feel. That just wouldn't be right. The way I'm feeling is not right.

In brighter news, the US will begin to admit HIV+ individuals into the country starting next year. It's hard to believe that HIV+ individuals were ever excluded from entering this country yearning for oppressed people, but it is true. Thank God America will no longer be part of a club of nations, Armenia, Brunei, Iraq, Libya, Moldova, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Sudan, that excludes HIV+ people from crossing into their borders.

Even if Korea were to change their laws, I don't think I would ever go back again. I think that part of my life is now buried forever.