Guide to Loving Fiercely
Growing up as a gay kid in the early '90s, I always had this nagging feeling that my time on earth was on a countdown. Maybe it was all the doom and gloom in the media about AIDS, or just a gut feeling, but I lived like there was no tomorrow. As a young g man I drank, I smoked, I did drugs, and I partied like there was no end in sight. And honestly, I had a blast. I figured something was going to take me away sooner rather than later, and I thought I’d rather be in control of it, be the perpetrator.
This feeling wasn’t just paranoia. I had spent many years cleaning myself up, getting clean and sober, getting married, and living a really good life. Yet, several family members and friends were diagnosed with cancer and died. Watching them go through that reinforced my belief that life is fragile and fleeting. It was like a constant reminder that my time was limited too.
Jump ahead a few years and conveniently forgetting how life goes …Then came the stroke when I was 50. It was like a slap in the face from the universe, confirming my suspicions that my time here was indeed limited. But it didn't kill me. It knocked me down hard, really hard , but it also made me realize something important: I have a lot of love to give, and there are a lot of people who need to know that I love them.
It's one of those things that not everyone gets to experience . When you face your own mortality over and over, you kind of get numb to it. But when something concrete, something completely out of your control, hits you, it’s terrifying in a whole new way. Suddenly, all those brushes with death feel like dress rehearsals for the real thing.
I've got a lot of people in my life who need to know that I care about them. And if the worst ever happens, I want the last thing they know to be how much I love them. So, I’m putting it out there, making sure my friends and family hear it loud and clear. I love you all, deeply and fiercely. Life is too short to keep it bottled up, and I'm not taking any chances…well I did buy a motorcycle recently … so there’s that .
So here's to living, loving, and making sure those we care about know exactly how much they mean to us. Because if there's one thing I've learned, it's that you never know how much time you really have. Should you ?
