Why?

My roommate and I were talking the other night. She's going through a lot right now. Her best friend is moving out to LA, thousands of miles away, maybe forever. Needless to say my roommate is broken hearted.

She also told me something that I was completely unprepared to hear, something that I don't think anyone is ever prepared to hear.

Her other best friend out in Arizona recently told her that he is HIV positive.

He's HIV positive.

I think I said oh my god about a million times.

He's my age, and he's HIV positive. He'll never live the carefree life of a young adult again. He can't just be a normal kid anymore.

So I have to ask why.

Why do things like this have to happen? Why is HIV so prevalent?

It's so preventable. There is no reason why people should get HIV, why young lives should be cut short.

And if the person who gave it to him knew he was HIV positive? Well that person is a murderer. If you're sick, let the people you are with know about it. Don't have anonymous sex.

I just don't get it.

I know bad things happen and there is nothing we can do about it, and there are some things we just have to accept.

Forgive me, but I just cannot accept the fact that people are dying of a completely prevantable disease. People are dying, families are being destroyed, futures are never being realized.

And that's just OK with the U.S. government? There has to be more we can be doing to find a cure, to find a vaccine, to do SOMETHING.

I'm really scared. I've never known someone who was HIV positive (that I'm aware of) and even though I don't know my roommate's best friend, I feel like I know him. He's our age, he's shared memories with one of my best friends.

It scares me because it's not okay. It's not okay at all, and it never will be until someone does something about it. This isn't one of those problems that can just be passed along from generation to generation, and hopefully one day one generation will say enough is enough. This is a big problem that needs to be fixed right now. It needed to be fixed years ago.

I guess I'm just at a loss for words. It doesn't make any sense to me, at all. And it never will.

On a lighter note, Mighty Mouse is doing fine this morning. The cats even knocked his cage over some time last night, and the little one is still doing fine. He really is just a little baby, he can hardly walk, but he loves burying his little head in the palm of my hand and curling up into a ball. He hates the milk I try to give him (it is fat free, I don't really blame him, but it's all we have) but he seems to like bird seed just fine. I had mice a long time ago, I've even had baby mice, but the baby mice had a mother to take care of them, and they were store bought mice, not wild mice. He's not out of the woods yet, but I think he's getting there.

I guess some things will never make sense.