Coming Clean: Confessions of an HIV-Positive Dad

I confess that I have always been a bit of a relationship junkie. Starting with my first girlfriend in high school I have pretty much moved from one commitment to another with little time, no time, or even negative time in between. The latter, negative time, referring to a commitment overlap, or, in every day vernacular, good ol’ fashioned cheating. In my defense, I come by it naturally – the coupling, not the cheating. Both sets of my grandparents were together ‘til death did them part, and my mom and dad are still married on the far side of sixty years. In addition, like me, my siblings have mostly always been coupled, so clearly a propensity for partnering is something that runs in the family.

 After spending my first year in New York in a long distance (NY/LA), transitional relationship, I headed into my second and final year of grad school with a promise to myself that I would remain single for the duration. My initial vow to remain unfettered was in response to a number of considerations, among them: I wanted undistracted writing time, I wanted time to reflect on and repair the relationship with my ex, and I had a desire to experience the unfamiliar freedom to make decisions that impacted only me. With this newly declared independence I imagined my second and final year in New York as a carefree, chock-full, prolific blur of ground-breaking theatre, underground clubs, and up-all-night writing binges.

 As I approached the halfway point in my last year in New York I was still single, but the plan for my year of big apple insanity and unrestrained creativity had far from materialized. Yes, I had seen some great theatre and spent a number of nights writing past dawn; sometimes to meet an imposed deadline, or on other occasions merely to trail some elusive artistic dalliance. What I had not done, however, was experience much of the social and artistic excess that the city had to offer – decorous, decadent, or otherwise – nor had I been on a single date. Something needed to change. I began to explore – to socialize outside of my comfort zone – and that is when I stumbled on the hunk.

 We started slow – the hunk and I – with a glass of wine and then a hug goodbye on the Bedford Platform of the L train in Williamsburg. By the time I was ready to head home to LA a few months later, however, we were seeing each other on a regular. It was in the midst of our developing relationship – during my spring break – that I had received the daddy call. It was partly the daddy call that  prompted me to rededicate myself to remaining single. My recommitment to a life alone at that juncture was likely based in fear and selfishness. When it came to considerations regarding the possibility of procreation, I felt as though I did not want to explain, convince, justify, or defend my decisions to anyone – because, after all, what if I couldn’t. In addition, if I am being completely honest – and I am – there was a part of me that didn’t want to share either. I wanted whatever surprises that were undoubtedly in store for me – both exhilarating and annihilating – all to myself. Without answer or account to anyone. That was how my head was squared. Solitary. My heart, however, was ever-pulling toward its default position of perpetual synthesis, so the battle was on.

 Post New York, the hunk and I stayed in contact. He came out to LA for a visit or two, and I was practicing a newfound habit of complete and uncensored honesty with him – probably just a passive-aggressive strategy to scare him off before things got too all out serious. For example, he was the only one, other than the future mommies, who knew of the impending impregnation. He also knew that I lived with my sister and her fiancé in a house that was under water. He knew that I was without permanent employment, and recently rejected by the Disney/ABC fellowship. He knew that I was saddled with student loan debt, sleeping in a double bed, and uninsured with HIV. I had even declined his invitation to go skiing in Salt Lake City, because I was afraid that after not being on snow skis for thirty years I would end up in a heap at the bottom of the mountain with a broken leg and nothing to pull out of my wallet; neither Blue Shield nor greenback.

 Fear of the mountain – an apt metaphor for where I was at that point in my life; standing alone at the base of an imposing peak that dared to be conquered. My career, a child, my future, everything would be an uphill climb and the thought of fully tethering myself to the hunk – prior to what would surely be a challenging ascent – triggered a landslide of self-doubt. Was my long innate desire to pair up somehow based in a fear of climbing alone – had it always been? Was my self-analytic fight against what I was feeling for the hunk partly fueled by my fear of losing him part way up? How would it work? Who would make the first move? What? Where? Why? How? I had yet to place my first foothold on the rocky slope, and already I was buried in an avalanche of uncertainty. I might have slowly suffocated there in that dusty pile of heavy, contemplative debris – caught between a hunk and a hard place – but then I felt an irrefutable tug.  The tether. It was already there. Securely fastened. And with calm, reassuring, hunkiness – Paul lovingly pulled me from the rubble.