World AIDS Day...22+ years later

I woke up today thinking about high school.  Maybe it's all those episodes of Glee I've been watching that have put me in that frame of mind.

Whatever the reason, I was thinking about the '80s...and life as an average Gen Xer.  We were the apathetic generation, you know.  The one without a defining event like Vietnam or Watergate...  The one that got through high school without cell phones, IMing and Starbucks.  And yes, I did go to college carrying a brand new Smith Corona typewriter that cost about the same as a laptop would today.

Life definitely seemed simpler.  I won't say easy because nothing about being in high school seems easy when you're there.  But definitely more basic.  Fewer options.  Less noise.  MTV was still a new thing.  And AIDS, what was that?

It wasn't until I was half way through college when I realized that AIDS was a truly big deal.  Like so many other people, that's when I read And the Band Played On, the groundbreaking book by investigative journalist Randy Shilts, which detailed the first years of the virus - the discoveries, the funding (or lack there of), the incredibly disturbing story of how AIDS was spreading...while high school kids like me worried about things that now seem so trivial (because they were). 

At first, when people fell victim to AIDS or died from a related illness, there were always other reasons given.  No one said the word.  But then there were too many people to pretend.  Members of our community, the editor of the magazine where I did an internship, and so many students my father had taught through the years.  Gone.

I don't know about other Gen Xers, but AIDS - the pandemic - changed how I thought about so many things.  It made me conscious of what was really happening in the world.  About the people who were suffering.  And the people who were working so hard to make a difference.  That was just the beginning, of course, because once my eyes opened, I began to see how many other things were happening in the world that I had so easily ignored.

Today, 20-some-odd years after I finished high school, we find ourselves "marking" the 22nd annual World AIDS Day.  Although I wish we didn't have a reason to acknowledge this important day, I do thank Randy Shilts for opening my eyes.  He was a courageous guy who told a story we needed to hear.  A story I won't soon forget.  A story that doesn't have an end...yet.