No Map, There, Nor Guide

Okay. I listened very carefully to you last night, and I've thought long and hard about what you said. You know me: I analyze these things to death. In thinking all of this mess over, however, I have sort of come to a possible resolution, so here goes.
You said that the thing that made you angriest was that I didn't tell him that I have cancer. At the time, I couldn't figure that one out; I mean, next to you, the cancer is the one thing that's shaped my life over the last year, and the fact that I didn't share something so fundamental with him seemed to me to indicate that seeing him and talking to him was about the past and not the present or the future. Now that I've thought it over, though, I'm guessing that you figured it this way: if he heard that I have cancer, he probably wouldn't pursue any further contact with me. Is that right? Do I have the thought behind the statement correct? Not that it matters, but you know how obsessed I am with making my mental projections fit the real world.
Anyway, I realized in hindsight that it was probably stupid of me not to tell you why I didn't give him that little fact to add to his calculations. The reason I didn't tell him has to do with something that he told me. I wasn't going to let you in on this part, mostly because I don't think it's anything to do with either of us, but that was wrong of me. I won't keep his secrets at our expense.
See, I didn't tell him that I had cancer because he already assumed that I was sick. No, not with cancer; see, Rod's been HIV+ since the mid-90's, and he thought I was (and am) too. It's almost funny in a macabre sort of way. I mean, I'm all skinny and have bags under my eyes that look drawn on with magic marker and I'm still a little jaundiced, and he took all that in and added it up and came to the wrong answer.
So why didn't I correct him? I don't know. Maybe it was because I didn't want to sound like I thought I was better than he was, that I didn't want to come off like my disease is better than his because he got his from fucking and I got mine... however you get this. Yes, probably from drinking and smoking and stressing, but that's beside the point. That was my initial reason... but then after I'd talked to him for a little bit, and I got to sort of adjust to the fact that I was actually seeing him again after I didn't think I ever would, I didn't tell him because I didn't think I'd see him again any time soon. Sure, I do want to know where he is and how he's doing. Just because you can't be with someone doesn't mean you don't care. Look at how I feel about Amber's mother! We had dinner with her last week, and you thought that was great. I knew, of course, that you weren't going to feel that way about Rod (at least not anytime soon), and the pass you've given me where David's concerned is more than enough. So I didn't tell him. I guess it would have been inviting him further into my current life if I had. It would have been like challenging him to care, or at least that's how I saw it.
So now let's just let this sink into the background, okay? I know you deleted his number from the phone, and I guess I'll just have to be okay with that. I swear to you on all that I hold sacred, on my grandmother's grave, on my hopes for recovery, ON THE LIVES OF MY CHILDREN that I didn't plan on dating him or sneaking around to see him or in any way compromising what we have to get him back into my life. Nothing that threatens what you feel for me could be worth it, don't you get that? So now, please please PLEASE let's just let it go. It can just fade away into something that happened that one time, and if I ever run into him in the future we'll just have to hope that I'm pushing a stroller with our kid in it by that point. I'm certainly not going to look for him. All I'm looking for is to return to the solid foundation you and I were standing on. It hasn't crumbled or cracked, it just got a little covered with some dust from the past.
Think about it, okay? And then call me.

Title from the second stanza of "Darest Thou Now, O Soul" by Walt Whitman.