cityXtra Magazine

Life's Not So Funny Curve Balls

By David Vandygriff

September 10, 2010 was the beginning of a year that would transform my whole being into yet another career and direction in life. Just 3 weeks prior I had been fired from a medical device company after the surgeons refused to work with a gay sales rep life was still going well. Even with this I quickly plotted my resumes to the all the right head hunters for medical device sales. This would be nothing but a bump in the road as I held the Top 6 with my previous employer in throughout the United States. Easy peasy! Right?

I had done my saving; bought stocks during the lows of the stock market snapping up Citi for .99, Bank of America at $1.25, Sirus in at .10, and the prize was a medical company that was trying to get its patent for a cancer test through FDA. I bought the stock on pink slips for .50. Needless to say the patent was issued and the stock quickly hit over $25 shares. The other shares we all knew bounced back to the same highs before the housing fall out. I had money in savings, 401k, and company stock bought at discount rates. I was not worried about the money.

In fact, my life was really great even though I had been fired for being gay. I had met a nice guy and we had moved in together. A few arguments and up and downs, all the natural process of any first year relationship. Laughing! I had purchased a commercial cleaning franchise and was doing medical consulting throughout the United States. Life was still good!

It was on Sept 10, 2010 I had gone to meet with a new client for the commercial cleaning business and landed the new contract. My boyfriend had asked me if I was sure I was HIV negative. I told him of course I had only been tested 30 days prior to us meeting and was HIV negative. No worries! Even so I decided I would stop by and get another test done.

I can still remember the testing person coming back into the room. I’m just chatting away waiting on the result as always prior for him to say you’re negative. Well not today. The tester said you are HIV positive. I don’t remember too much of what he said after that. My breathing became so labored, tears rolled down my face, my heart was beating out of chest, I vaguely remember or think I had to lay down on the floor. My mind was racing of what I am going to tell my boy friend. What about his health? We had been having unprotected sex.  My life changed that day in ways I am still discovering daily. 

Somehow, I gathered myself and left the testing center and sat in my car crying. I called my best friend who lived in Memphis and she cried with me for another 30 minutes. I knew I had to go home and tell my boy friend. Panic was something that doesn’t even describe the emotions I feeling. I called a friend of mine that I knew was HIV positive to meet me at my downtown condo. He meet me out front, still my tears rolled, I paced, talked without stopping, and all the time dreading the conversation of many I would have to have. 

I entered the bedroom he was napping. I woke him up and he saw the tears streaming down my cheeks and quickly sat up and said what is wrong. I could hardly breathe, let alone talk. I managed to stumble out the words I got a test and I was HIV positive. He started saying I knew I knew it and quickly got up and went into the bathroom. I knew right then I would lose him. 

He showered and dressed then we took him for his test. All the time I sat in the waiting room praying not to allow this to happen to him. I can handle myself but I do think I could handle it if I had passed this virus to him. That is burden I wish never to carry. Thank God he was HIV negative.

I recall some of the next two weeks in bits and pieces. I kept trying to get myself together for him because I had always been the strong one, the one that took care of everything. I knew was scared and never been exposed to HIV. I do remember the second night we had went to sleep I reached over to hold him. I didn’t feel his response to me holding him. I started to remove my arms from his body and he quickly grabs my arm and pulled me close. I broke down once again. I had many moments of uncontrollable crying, him being scared to leave me alone, him trying to work and worried about me.  We did our best to comfortable one another the best we knew how. 

Things quickly turned worse as some of his friends found out and told his co-workers. Then some of his friends tried to say I knew before we meet. Luckily I had saved my test results from just 30 short days before we got together. No matter the situation his friends put so much on his shoulders and the relationship was to new to endure such uncertainty and insanity. We tried for a couple of months only to end in the way I knew we would. 

I finally gathered myself and mind a couple of months later. I had been interviewed and hired by an orthopedic implant company out of Orlando. I had been recruited for my expertise in robotic surgery. I was offered and accepted the position as Vice President of Sales for North America. I felt life was finally getting back on track. I sold most of my nonperson items in prep for the move to Orlando. Hell we even done a farewell party. I was preparing everything for the move. I went to Orlando to search for an apartment and was requested to visit the corporate office and meet the new President of the company. We meet and this was when he informed me there had been a mistaken in my hiring process. He felt he needed an even more experienced person to run the sales department. He was hiring a previous person he had worked with for the Vice President of Sales. I was compensated for my trouble but needless to say the set back was just another traumatic experience in the worst year of my life.

The year was full of stripping away the things I once held as priorities in my life. My successes in a career that I once held as my purpose of life were now gone. I somehow unknowingly felt a burden of relief. Crazy I know but somehow it was freeing me from the restrictions of my perfect organized and categorized inventory of life. Something was happening as I walked into a life of the unknowing, the unplanned, the world of not knowing what would happen next, but through it all I was gaining a greater understanding of myself. My true limits, my true desires, my ever increasing need to help others not to ever experience the things I had. A life to where things finally meant more than a paycheck or level of achievement measured in the dollars. I felt as if my life had turned into something with a purpose. 

It was at this point the inception of River City News Magazine (cityXtra Magazine) was born. I had never thought nor dreamed of being a publisher. I knew nothing about graphics, advertising, journalism, or the expertise about operating a publication. All I knew was that I felt the Jacksonville LGBT Community needed a way to community, unite, and promote its self.  It has been an interesting journey with many newly learned expertise at a rather accelerated pace. I finished my Master Degree during this process and have become a community activist. Something I never had thought of myself being. Now that I am in my new role, I make mistakes but I don’t hold them against myself. Instead I look at the mistakes as a real life class room full of new lessons in life. My life is now more fulfilling than I ever thought possible. I have meaning, true meaning with a higher purpose that take precedent over my own self. A purpose of giving back to a community that has given me life once again. A community that accepts me with my flaws and perfectly imperfect self. 

I am NOT a man that is HIV positive; I’m simply a man attempting to make a change. However small or large, I just want to know I have made a difference. A difference that may make someone’s life just a little bit better. I enjoy making doing with less, but with more passion and drive than ever before. The money, career, etc. never made me happy, I always felt empty. Now I feel complete, content, happy, and for the first time in my life I’m okay with being alone with Miss Penny (my doggy). My life is rich with friends & family! I’m truly blessed!