I’ve lately been revisiting Armistead Maupin’s “Tales of the City” series on audiobooks. As Melody and I made our way through the series, we had a conversation about AIDS and the ways it touched our personal lives.

Though Melody is only 18 months older than me, our experiences couldn’t have been more different.

She vividly remembers getting her first test and waiting the interminable two weeks for the results, she lost dear friends to the disease, and nursed loved ones as they succumbed to it.

My first several partners were all long-term relationships, virgins when I met them. Despite being in open/poly relationships from my very first serious girlfriend, and being in a threesome for several years across high school and college, I was… this feels really hard to confess… I was 30 before I had sex with someone who had previous sexual partners. Said another way, I was 30 before I had sex with someone whose virginity I had not “taken”. As I look back and say that out loud, it seems unfathomable to me.

As such, I didn’t worry about possibly contracting HIV until long after the horrific shock of the plague had passed and people resigned themselves to the possibility as a tragically real risk of our era.

It’s scarcely believable that a journey started like that has led me to where I am today.