More Of Us

Yesterday, Corey texts me about a boy who got in contact with him after seeing this picture in THE ADVOCATE (Corey's blurb is number seven in the series). This boy recently found out he was HIV positive and when he saw Corey with his doctor, something clicked in him to reach out and say what he needed to say, I suppose. Last night, we're talking about it, and I say to Corey how this kid must feel, you know, seeing someone as healthy-looking as him and reach out because of what is currently going through this kid's mind. Corey says that it's happened to him before, several times. At one point last night, I naturally recall what it was like when I first found out what it was like when I first found out I was HIV positive. Then, about three years ago, I'd known Corey for about a year and only online (we'd started communicating via myspace because I really liked his writing there). Below is the email I sent him then:

From: Javier
Date: Oct 5, 2007 11:46 AM

hi corey...

i find it a little weird i'm writing you this email; we've not met and know of the other online. this is the twenty-first century, i guess.

i know you read some of the things i post on here and you've emailed me about a few as i have about yours, randomly, so i hope this doesn't come off rude or in appropriate but i need some advice, and really, i hope you can offer me some because i'm a little lost.

two weeks ago i went to the doctor about something i thought was serious but turned out not to be. a week ago today, my doctor calls me and tells me my blood tests show i'm hiv positive. went through a lot emotionally and mentally over the last seven days, and my initial visit with my infectious disease doctor this week's calmed me down a lot. but i still find myself constantly thinking about it, driving myself crazy when there is no need. just returned from another blood test, and i'm sitting here, trying to read the paper and i can't.

maybe it's not really advice i want or need. but, i guess, what i really want to ask is how did you get over this initial shock? how do you reconcile the news with your everyday life? my friends are a great and all (and i've yet to talk to my family about this), but lots of times i just feel like i'm bothering them (i don't know if this is the right word) with all of this.

any advice is welcomed. as i mentioned earlier, hope this isn't inappropriate in any way, but i'm kind of feeling a little lost right now. hope you're doing well, writing lots, and enjoying this nice friday. thank you for your time reading this.

j.

Last night, Corey says the kid who reached out to him, I'll call him W. And I'm re-reading these emails from long ago and wondering if right now, somewhere in Oklahoma, there is a kid who's feeling just like I felt in October 2007. Of course there is. After I found out my diagnosis, I began keeping a blog for that here and I began posting pictures on flickr as well.
Also, last night, while about to call Corey on the phone, I got a direct message on twitter that said (sic, to be sure): "so i know this is completley random but I was going thru ur tweets, and pics on flickr and was wondering howd you tell ya mom about ya status". It came from a flickr and twitter and facebook 'friend' who I don't know (I'll call him D). We've exchanged comments on pictures I think, and a couple of tweets, but that's it. So, I answered and got back on the phone with Corey. But later that night, as he answered me back and I got a better idea of why this boy was reaching out to me (a latter direct message says, "...ya pics kinda let me know im not the only 1 in a relationship so its reassuring. yall like a hallmark card"), I began to think more as Corey and I had said earlier of the impetus we get to reach out to strangers in regard to something so life-altering.

Corey and I were talking last night and came up with that in this circumstance all we can do is be ourselves and be honest with these kids, which is what Corey was for me years ago. Corey even went further and said that there really wasn't anything that we could say that was the wrong thing and I agree with him. All things considered, after finding out you're HIV positive, what could another positive person say to you that he shouldn't? And I thought a little more on it when Corey said that me, now being the one someone reached out to, could be seen as becoming part of something bigger. And I think that was the feeling I got after I exchanged messages with D. As we talked, I pointed out to Corey that W and D both had not revealed their statuses to more than a couple of people (parents, and boyfriend & best friend, respectively) and us individually, and this, in turn, made me dig out the email I posted above because, well, the case was the same for me then. I wonder if Corey's was as well.

One of the most striking things that we came up with in conversation last night was how it simply keeps on happening: Corey said how at a recent performance he attended, a performer said in his piece how exes revealing their new-found HIV positive statuses showed him how it felt as if it were still 1983 at the height od the AIDS/HIV epidemic, and Corey and I did not disagree with that sentiment. I made the observation to Corey how I think I'm a bright guy, you know, and pretty decent, but still I got infected. Likewise, I said, Corey did also. A little chuckle between us both, but it's pretty much true: never once in my life did I ever think I'd sit here, typing away about this, but I am because of the choices I made or didn't make along the way. For me, until 2007, having sex was something I did to pass the time while intoxicated or bored. It's never really been the most important thing in my life, but when I was in it, I never considered the risks of unprotected vaginal or anal or even oral sex. I was an adult making dubious choices and when I was thirty, well, I discovered this bug in my blood. And I remember being so shocked then, obviously, but objective hindsight tells me, "Fuck, Javier, what the hell did you think would happen?"

Honestly, I think had anyone I knew at the time said to me to protect myself and avoid multiple sex partners and all that I wouldn't have listened anyway. It's the arrogance of the human being. And, even now, I don't fault anyone for anything because I made the choice to have some man fuck me bareback when I knew all the consequences it entailed. And of course it's a little late for blame-gaming. Curiously, I still believe it's a matter of choice with us adults, who we have sex with and how, and the greater responsibility is for oneself and not count on others to look out for us. So paradoxical, this, since I want folk to be safe, but am not so forceful in that belief.

So: W and D are part of this whole of us HIV positive men of color. I'm not out to castigate and chastise but to listen and hopefully help. Because I remember exactly how each of these two boys are feeling right now. I remember how it felt to hit the send button in that email to a stranger of whom one of the things I knew was his HIV status. Because then, like W and D, all I wanted was someone to listen to me and tell me something. Anything. And like W and D and Corey and I, there will unfortunately always be more and more of us who need US.

Of course, we will always be here.