The 14th of this month was my 8th anniversary. I am now an 8 Year AIDS Survivor.

Eight years since I stopped being the person I used to be and started being this one. Because that’s what the Enemy Virus does, it climbs inside you and in every practical way becomes a part of you. Not just in the sense that there’s no way to get it out, but also in the way it becomes a part of your every waking moment - your habits, what you eat, the decisions you make, how you look at the world, and how the world looks at you. I am not who I was eight years ago.

Of course I’m not. Nobody is. Nobody’s the same person they were last week. But because of HIV the possibilities of the person I could have become became constrained. From now on, anything I do in the future has to be contingent on whether I will be able to obtain the sophisticated medication that keeps me alive. I can’t plan to travel to certain parts of the world; they won’t let me in because of my HIV. I can’t leave it behind at the checkpoint like leaving behind a disallowed object at airport security - it’s not something I have, it’s now something I am.

In that sense, marking eight years loses some of its meaning, like counting the eighth year of eternity. Except my eternity, because of HIV, isn’t going to be as long as a negative person’s eternity. ART notwithstanding, my life expectancy is shorter, and my quality of life is less. I may have ticked over 8, but I don’t expect to live to 80.

On the other hand, eight! I’ve held the walls against the goddamn Enemy for Eight solid years after it did its damnedest to take me out and failed. There are no cracks in my defense so far, and my resolve has not weakened. I’m not one of those who’s holding out hope for a cure - there will be one in time, I have utter faith in science, but I doubt it will come in time to apply to me. I expect to be fighting till the end.

Looking back across eight years of suffering and struggle and vigilance sometimes sharpens the question in my mind - why? Why are we made to suffer? Why are we handed such fate? I am one who believes that all things happen for some reason, and I often struggle to comprehend the reason for this.

I try to make good come of it - I don’t shy away from telling my story to people, here and elsewhere. My strengths are in words and information, so I do my best to spread knowledge and understanding, and dispel stigma about what it is to be Positive. Even so, sometimes that feels like shouting in the dark, because I can never be sure I do any good, that my suffering has any point.

Until now.

Yesterday I got a call.

My gay nephew, who is 32, was just diagnosed with HIV. (If any of you sick motherfuckers dare say ‘congratulations’ I will find you, rip off your head and shit down your throat.) I do not yet know his CD4 count or viral load, but he is also very sick with MRSA. This is my sister’s family. They are frightened, confused, uncertain…and they are going to need me, because I’ve lived with, and survived, the same thing - for eight years.

Now I know why.

In my tribe there is a saying: ‘If you’re bleeding, look for a man with scars’. - Leela of the Sevateem