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Tapestry, 1995.Tapestry
June 26, 1995
Tapestry's apartment, Lower Haight, San Francisco
James is one of his roommates
Tapestry: Two months ago. Wednesday, 9:40 AM April 19th, 1995, I got my test results. A month prior I had woken up, gone into the bathroom, and looked in the mirror at myself. "You know you're positive, don't you?" I blew it off because a friend of mine had just died and I was going through all of that. So, when they told me I was positive, I was quiet and went numb.
Meredyth: You already knew?
Tapestry: Yeah.
MW: How did...?
Tapestry: I was here, at home, getting ready for work and I had some extra time. I had a friend over and we'd been cuddling all night, I like that. So, I came back over, crawled into bed, snuggled up to this person, and fell asleep. I had a dream that I was looking for myself. I kept bumping into parts of me, but not the sum of who I am. When I finally saw myself, I was lying in bed; I was cold and bluish gray and dead. I got closer, looking myself lying in this bed, dead. In the background, I heard a chewing sound, like someone eating flesh. When I turned around, I saw people out of my life chewing on different parts of me. Sitting there, gnawing and glaring at my body.
When I woke up, all of this horror and fear was present all of a sudden, it was incredible. I became freaked out that I was going to die this brutal, ugly death. When I look back on it now, it wasn't even that I was going to die; it was about all the things I allowed to consume my life. I'm at a point now where I've been told that I'm going to have a shorter time on this planet than I had thought and something in my subconscious said OK, change your environment, or go through this.
After that incident, I stopped working. It financially screwed me, but I needed that time. For the first time in 23 years, I made a conscious decision to take full control of my life, instead of watching it pass by. I've always been told that I am a good survivor. That's how I spent the last 23 years, surviving my life and situations. I originally started dealing with my HIV diagnosis in the same way. It was a physical thing, a medical problem that needs to be taken care of. This is not just a medical problem, this is me. I have to take care of me if I want to live. More than just survive, if I want to live. That scares me. "What?! ME? NO! You're joking!" But it was true.
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