I didn't want to date when I was in high school, but my parents kept pushing me: "How come you don't date? How come you don't go to the prom?" Then I remember all of a sudden waking up one day and thinking, "My God, I'm gay. I like men." Somehow making that connection of how I felt and putting the word with it..... made things much easier to understand.
I love the job that I'm at now. I'm able to be open about being a lesbian and open about being HIV. I mentioned that I was HIV in the job interview, because I had worked in a boarding home for people with head injuries before, and when they found out that I was HIV-positive, all of a sudden my job performance just wasn't very good any more. I didn't want to go through that again, so I figured I'd say it right up front in the interview. I don't want to be hired somewhere and then let go or forced to quit because of that. I don't want to deal with the stress of being discriminated against.
Nancy and I went to the church that night. There was a lot of music with chanting. Then the healing priest, a channel for the healing energy of God, came around and touched people during the service. It's typical for those people to fall, just absolutely without reserve, flat on the floor. It's just WHAM, WHACK, flat against the floor..... The priest was coming around from behind and up the aisle toward us. Nancy and I were standing there, on the end of the aisle .....and we were singing. When the priest came to us, he looked right at Nancy and I. He doesn't touch everybody, of course; but simultaneously, with his two hands, he reached up and touched each of us right on the forehead. In the same instant, both of us just went WHACK against the pew and couldn't move. In that instant, a surge of energy went through our bodies. It was the spirit of God through this priest to the two of us. He didn't often touch two people at the same time, and Nancy hadn't known about it in advance....but we were both just lying there, conscious, but limp.
Back in college, I remember one guy saying, "If you want to change the world, change your own life." That has stuck with me....I'm into a healthy lifestyle and living lighter on the earth, although I'm not advocating living in caves. I think that we can have a lighter impact than we do and still have all the creature comforts.