From The Ashes ...

Happy Anniversary? (or) HIV! The Early Years!

Well, it’s official. Today marks one year since I received my HIV diagnosis. I’m wearing a party hat as I type this. Official in more ways than one. Because I was such a bad faggot lo those many years, at least when it came to taking care of myself, we’ll never know exactly when I contracted the virus or how long I’ve been a walking bug factory. So March 7, 2003 becomes the official, official date. I’m thinking of re-naming it my unbirthday. The day I began the long march towards death day sounding a bit of a downer to me. I guess rebirthday is probably the better choice but, truth to tell, my rebirth began long before my diagnosis. In some ways it’s how I ended up with my diagnosis. It was after my birthday in 2003 that I decided to take total charge of my mental and physical health. You see, when I turned 40, in an effort to stave off depression at my rapidly advancing age, I decided to use each birthday as a jumping off point. A chance to make a significant and lasting change to me or my life that would be both a challenge and a reward. A chance to change or improve or to learn or to grow. At 40, I gave up smoking. I smoked until the night before my birthday. Then before I went to bed I gathered up and threw away every cigarette and ashtray in the house and physically carried them down to the garbage. Then I opened the nicotine patch, put the first one on, and that was that. I awoke on my birthday a dedicated non-smoker. And it took. I haven’t had a smoke since. So it was the following year I dedicated to my overall health. That worked out well, huh? Actually, finding out for sure I was HIV + was, for me anyway, something of a relief. Not that I did this intentionally far from it. But HIV for a lot of gay men is the biggest of the big boogeymen. The scariest scary. I’ve been quietly personally a tad impressed with my ability to face a great fear without fear. And while my quick response stock sentiment would be “being HIV+ blows, man.” It has, again speaking for myself, forced great changes in how I take care of myself both physically and spiritually. If the cumulative information from the last year of blood tests ( I think 7 times) has revealed anything, I’m textbook healthy, otherwise. Perfect in every way *blush*. And speaking as a man who periodically would address a life kept in containers within boxes within facets, being HIV+ has afforded me the opportunity to pick up the entire giant snow globe and give it a good hard shake. The changes are exciting and most welcome. I wonder, at times if I’ll be as serene when/if the virus manages to begin overwhelming my body’s defenses and I have to begin what could end up to be a lifetime of medication. I suspect I’ll deal. I usually do, it seems.