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Tapestry, 2000.Tapestry
from a conversation taped May 11, 2000
The beauty of the state I'm in is that I realize getting comfortable with myself, with my status, my sexuality, my color, me, is a forever learning process. The past few years have been a very growing but incredibly painful time. I'm glad to be coming out of that now, but the stress wore down on my body, my mental state, and my immune system.
Since I got my AIDS diagnosis, I've tried to be more tolerant of people's failure to understand the choices I make, but it's hard. When I first got my numbers people automatically said, "you've got to get on meds." But I don't want to take drugs. I'm not ready to make that commitment. I want to watch my system work by itself before I consider taking medication for the rest of my life. It seems like the rest of the world thinks: you get HIV; you get AIDS; you get on medication. They say that for me to live a full life I need to take 2-25 pills a day. That doesn't sound exciting to me. I know about the side effects. My quality of life would diminish for anywhere from two to five years as my body adjusts to taking drugs. Once I say, "yes," the Dr. goes home and plays with his kids, talks with his wife, or whatever the case may be, and I have brand new bottles of pills sitting in my medicine cabinet. When people come over, I have to explain it. If I forget to take them I have to wonder what will happen. I don't have to take them now and if I have my way, and things progress in the manner I want them to, I never will. I'll just pay close attention to my health. Again, it comes back to choice, presenting people with actual workable, livable choices. I'm still pushing an agenda of choice, but I don't push it in the same way.
We've talked HIV into the ground but never reached the heart of it. We need to give youth real information they can use. We need to recognize HIV as a health issue and not just a sex issue. Why don't we try being honest with people? It's gonna be ugly, it's gonna piss somebody off, but it's the only thing we have left. It scares people because it means acknowledging things that they don't want to acknowledge like homosexuality, that young people have sex, and that they have unconventional sex. I've talked to maybe one or two.
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