Choices: Pt. 2, "May not be feeling me right now, but sure am feeling blessed/life right now"

Life is good. Gotta always remind myself that it’s the little things to be thankful for. My holiday season started off with a bang when I beat a $100 parking ticket…at DC adjudication I might add! Christmas eve, got the call that all is well with the blood work I had done; had to make sure I didn’t have diabetes…all is well on that front. Had my big screen delivered, 53 inches of electronic relaxation…yeah baby!! Then, all the time with family. Realized how many youngyin’s we have in my family, whoah! My cousin Jason and I are the last stronghold, man. Everybody else has kids damn near. Was able to bless my family with gifts, despite being strapped for money (the big screen was purchased through a lot of “love donations” and careful financial planning).
Christmas eve also meant something else…getting other results. Let me preface this by saying I have never had sex without a condom! Okay, for those who have ever taken an HIV test, I’m sure they know how stressful it can be. Because I had taken one before, back when I was “active”, it was mildly stressful, but I wasn’t really trippin’. Oddly enough, the incidents surrounding my 2 ½ year period of celibacy is what kinda had me trippin’. Not that I thought I had the package or somethin’, but because I had to at least contemplate the possibility of it. In doing so, the gravity of this plague came crashing down around me. The fact that I’d have to tell my mother, and my little brother, my best friend’s, how would it affect them??? This shit is so far beyond just me, everybody has to live with it… And then there are the calls. The, “I think you need to get tested” call. I have actually gotten one of these for another STD from a friend…and although I wasn’t worried, and she later found out it was a fluke (she jumped the gun a bit…she was fine too), it took balls…or ovaries in her case, to make that call. And even though if is the largest word in the dictionary, if I had gotten unfavorable results, I have to think about all the people I’d be affecting in some way.
Sure, I’ve always been responsible enough to use my own condoms (some women like to poke holes in shit fellas), but honestly, condoms ain’t 100%. Condoms do break. Women who really want the dick will tell you they’re at the end of their period, so they’re not really bleeding, or some may not say shit at all. And, who would I have to blame if the numbers caught up with me on some next shit…myself. Love prompted me to get tested, knowing I wanted to be more certain before I seriously talked of settling down. But then, I was celibate until right after Thanksgiving when I had to cut some of my own bird, y’heard?
Personally, I want nothing more than to settle down, but doing so is something I’m not emotionally prepared to do. Because I wasn’t in any for real relationship in high school or college (long story), I for one haven’t had a “real relationship” yet. Who knows about tomorrow…I have stopped habits or tendencies on a whim, so I may be like fuck it…chill. But, I don’t want to settle down with somebody feeling I haven’t played out…everything…or at least most of it. The flipside being, I also want to chill because that AIDS shit is no joke.
Which in my non-linear way of thinking leads me to a strange topic: Being felt and not knowing it. I don’t notice when a woman is diggin’ me, unless of course she makes it painfully obvious. On more than one occasion, I have gotten down with a chick, only to find that she had been feeling me for weeks, months, sometimes years…
One young lady, hella cool, told me she had been feeling me from a distance for like two years after we had a nice session. Blew my mind because that’s the type of shit I do. Shit, I had a crush, in college no less, on this chick for four years before I said something in senior year. My blunt nature was my undoing, I’m sure, in that scenario. However, I’d probably still get butterflies in my tummy if I saw ole girl tomorrow. She has single-handedly been the muse for more poems than any other person I have ever met. Sure, some of it is the old high school esteem, but generally, I don’t look at myself as being hot shit. I know I’m not ugly, but I don’t spend time in the mirror longer than I have to. In some ways, I think I view myself as that little 5 foot cat with a Napoleonic complex, all rains and wit with no size…decidedly geeky, yet still cool as shit if you know him. The funny thing is, from a logical standpoint, I’m prime choice: Heterosexual, no kids, employed, no record, with his own spot. Damn, if I can’t see all the beauty if self, how can I expect others to???
Anyways, back to point- So what I didn’t see it, who am I to play with hearts and emotions, especially when I’ve been on the other side? Does it matter that I don’t know? Sex is different on almost every level when it comes to men and women. I mean, women are internalizing us…and if that energy is good…it can become an addiction or a craving. Would write more, but too many thoughts. Feel free to share your on the message/bored? Just rambling…