Falling (in love), falling (in death)

The birth of authenticity is, according to Golomb, ‘. . . rooted in revolution . . . [where] . . . one isleft to one’s lonely self, and this selfhood must suffice to provide everything previously suppliedby various social and cultural institutions. One is now obliged to create values and patterns ofbehaviour from one’s own mental resources . . .’ (1995: 12). Authenticity is a state that is achievedor entered into, a becoming of oneself or selves. Authenticity surfaces in action, in movement, inbeing moved outside of, or traumatized beyond oneself, where one is taken to a point of no return.I write here of my own trauma, change and revolutionary new beginnings as a result of seeing,loving, finding, loosing and never really knowing a man, a lover, who was in a state of denial overhis HIV antibody status, in fact it is likely that during our affair he may have been ‘full blown’. Asa result I saw myself, found me, and subsequently lost both of us, in order to emerge transformed.This man caused me to fall from where I was ‘at’ to a new place, a new existence during ourrelationship, yet on his death, due to AIDS related illnesses, and the circumstances of my hearingof it, I was to fall again. I haven’t left the place where I have found myself landing, although it is aspace of ‘incessant movement’ (Golomb 1995: 9) of becoming. My meeting with P (I use his initialout of respect for his friends and family) was a point in space and time where I became altered, mymoment or process of authentication proceeded from my fracture, my undoing1 on impact, onhearing of his death. I suppose I could be accused of perpetuating discourses of romance, of love,in this story. I hold my hand up to that accusation, I need love, I am lonely and I am loveable, I’veproved it. I love passionately. Ann Game and Andrew Metcalfe have armed me with this word,passion. Passion is what I am left with, and that’s no bad thing. Passion, for Game and Metcalfe isthe form of mortal desire (1996: 3). You see love is never alone, never solitary. Love is experiencedwith loss.