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JASON GAVE YOU A GIFT
An extract from A Life of Unleaning - a preacher's struggle with his homosexuality, church and faith.
I cried when I when I wrote this. I cried presenting it at the writer's festival for Queer Stories. And I cried listening to it.
"When I dropped Jason at Central Station at the end of Easter weekend 1994, I meant it when I said, “I never want to see you again”.
It wasn’t because over the weekend he’d revealed he was one of the first to contract HIV in Sydney in the early 80’s and the supposed ‘diagnosis’ in 1992, during our tumultuous 12 month relationship, was actually a fabrication. It was that he had stolen money from me once again.
Having navigated the decades of self-loathing and finally coming to a place of self-respect I was committed to ensuring my world consisted only of people who treated me with respect. Jason, proved to me that even though his time was ending, nothing had changed. But I had."
READ OR LISTEN HERE
There's a valuable life lesson I learnt at the end.
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