Urban Thought Collective

It’s been quite the week. First off, I gave myself the meanest, deepest paper cut ever (and my boss, Danny, made me fill out an incident report about my injury). Later that same day, I managed to lock myself inside a bathroom stall, having no choice but to put hands and knees on the grimy bathroom floor to crawl out. And then on Tuesday, I intercepted a call on my boyfriend Jonathan’s phone from his ex (and, yes… the contact on his phone literally listed her as “Ex”). I didn’t even know he had an ex. I mean, I realize that potentially there are dozens or more women out there able to claim that title. But I had no idea that he and this particular ex still communicated. So, I freaked out. I didn’t say anything to him about it, but my imagination went berserk trying to figure out what he and this ex could possibly have to discuss. And why Ex is saved as a contact in his phone.

Rather than confronting him or seeking advice from a gal pal, I did what seemed perfectly rational to me at the time: I headed straight to the local clinic right after work the next day, finding myself telling a woman on the other side of the thin glass waiting room pane, “Hi. I’d like to get an HIV test.”

Now boo me all you want, but this was a first for me. Call it denial or fear or ignorance, but I’d always told myself that if I had HIV, I’d rather just not know. It’d worked with chicken pox, my physician recently telling me I had antibodies for it despite having no recollection of any poc-related illnesses in my past. So, I’d applied the same logic to AIDS and other things that seemed overwhelmingly ominous.

But for some strange reason, thoughts about this Ex pushed me into a new place, where my knowing for sure that I was positive or negative was much better than being uninformed. At least I’d be able to take medications if I was positive for HIV or anything else. I’d even mentally quashed my fear of needles before stepping inside the building, only to learn that all they needed from me was a swab from inside my mouth. “Seriously,” I’d asked Leslie, the HIV counselor, right before she started asking me a long list of personal questions.

Mariah sings about folks being all up in her business like a Wendy Williams interview. Shoot, Wendy’s got nothing on these clinic counselors. Initially, I was annoyed by Leslie’s questions about the most intimate details of my life. Soon enough, however, I relaxed, realizing that there was a benefit to talking about what I was doing, who I was doing, in what places I doing the things I was doing, how often I was doing it, and what drugs I’d taken before doing what I was doing. I felt like I was on the Playboy Channel’s version of “This Is Your Life,” surprised that her final round of inquiries didn’t ask me about my favorite positions or if I smoked a cigarette afterwards. She assured me, however, that everything I said was completely confidential, and that she could get fined for telling anyone about our discussion. Yah – fined and told off if I ever found out Leslie spilled my beans.

Just as I started wondering how I’d cope with the stress of waiting around for a couple of weeks for the results, Leslie informed me that the test they use would be ready in 20 minutes. I nearly fainted. That was cool in all, but I hadn’t been emotionally prepared to learn my status so quickly. Tempted to get up and run away, I secretly vowed to keep my legs closed and my panties up until I’d jumped the broom with a healthy, upstanding brotha who didn’t have Ex listed in his phone. But then, she reminded me of the “C” word.

“How often do you and your partner use condoms?”

I was embarrassed to tell her that we haven’t used condoms at all since I got back on the pill in February. But eventually I fessed up, and she reminded me that the pill doesn’t protect against HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. “I know,” I told her, using the economy as my excuse for not investing in prophylactics.

“Condoms are cheaper than a lifetime of HIV medications,” she said, making me feel as big as a piece of lint. She was right, though. It takes an incident like this to gain a little perspective. Scary statistics don’t hurt either, Leslie telling me that rates of infection among Black women and Latinas in the U.S. have been rising.

“Why is that?” I’d asked, happy to shift the conversation away from me and my recent confessions.

“All sorts of reasons,” she told me, noting issues like stigma, shame, homophobia, poverty, and racism. Deep. I got more than an HIV test up there. I got an education.

I’m happy to say that, twenty minutes later, my test came back negative. I wasn’t dancing on the ceiling or anything, remembering Leslie’s thoughts about how stigmatized the disease is, but I was happy. Living with HIV or AIDS is tough. I have a cousin on the East Coast who was diagnosed over a decade ago. Improved treatments have certainly improved his quality of life, but he still has daily struggles to manage.

So although I’m still troubled by the Ex-factor, I’m happy that her call led me to the clinic. Thinking about the valuable information Leslie provided to me, I’m empowered to do something. To take action. Maybe I’ll raise money for AIDS Walk this year, or spend time doing work in the community. And I’m definitely going to give my cousin a call to see how he’s doing. Most of all, I’m down for taking some personal responsibility, which means no more nookie for Jonathan…at least not without condoms.

Diane is (quite) a character on the online soap opera Buena Beach (www.buenabeach.com). Her weekly insights on what’s happening at the Beach are featured exclusively on Urban Thought Collective.