NAPWA

Marie

When I was first diagnosed, I was thinking sometimes days ahead, sometimes weeks, sometimes maybe months ahead. Now I’m thinking years into the future and am quite happy to plan things one or two years down the track.

Trying to make my daughters decent human beings is on my list. I suppose that is every mother’s goal. Also, as they get older, I want to negotiate with them so that I can maybe be more public about my own HIV status, because I think that will be helpful for other positive women as well as for me.

Dave

I don’t have any goals. It doesn’t last forever; people are still dying. One minute they’re good and the next minute they’re all gone. Medication won’t keep me alive altogether. I don’t think you can really plan for years ahead.

Evan

I’ve set goals beyond the daily and the meaningless, beyond just survival as a reward. My goals now are to enjoy myself. To laugh. To produce the things I want to produce.

I sat down and wrote down all of these things that were important to me. One of them was friendships. The second one was an emotional prime relationship, which I’ve actually decided is not attainable, but happens by the random luck of the universe and I don’t have any anticipation that it will ever happen again. A third one was being intellectually challenged, and playing bridge and writing provide that challenge. A fourth was going to movies and reading and all of those sorts of things and the fifth one is the Net and international politics. I live a life quite consumed by modern technology and the Internet and all of the possibilities that that opens up. I actually exist in an international community of people with HIV on the Internet, who work in an intellectual sphere like I do. I find more meaning and sense there than I can find locally.

Stephen

I was 20 when I was diagnosed and so I wanted to hit 30. A lot of people said I wouldn’t hit 30. Now I’m nearly 33 and I’ve got to make 40.

Putting the weight back on was another goal of mine and I’ve done that finally. Getting control over the mess in my apartment is another one. I’ve got to get my own surroundings back in order.

Sara

My T-cells are around 500 and my viral loadA measurement of the quantity of HIV RNA in the blood. Viral load blood test results are expressed as the number of copies (of HIV) per milliliter of blood plasma. is between 30 and 50, so there’s no need for treatments yet, which makes me very happy. I like to put little targets in front of myself: say I’ve done five years without treatments, so I’ll aim for another five years without them. I’ve done eleven years, so I’m going to take it year by year now. That way I can congratulate myself more often. It works, and it makes me feel good.

Rob

I had this tunnel vision of getting through the day. I wouldn’t even plan a week ahead to go out for dinner with someone, whereas now I very confidently plan ahead. I try to live well, love well, work well and work-wise, I certainly do have ambitions and plans for the future, because I regard the rest of my life as reasonably comfortable and secure. I probably look forward five years. Who knows what will happen? But whatever happens I’ve survived this long and I’ve made the best of it I can.

Tai

My advice is to just keep going and pretend you’re going to live forever. That’s the way I’ve gone about it. I was talking to a friend once an she said ‘If I knew I was going to die tomorrow I would still go on today like I did every other day. It really isn’t going to make any difference’. That’s how I would do it too, because I’ve realised that it takes a very long time and a lot of patience to accept and change oneself and one’s life. Our lives are as good as they are now, however good or bad it is.

Harry

I always believe that you have to set yourself goals that you can achieve; I think it gives you purpose and some direction. I am thirty-seven now and one of my goals is to have my fortieth birthday in Paris and then spend three months in Italy, then three months in Spain.

Because I feel that a lot of positive people never get an opportunity for affordable, long term counselling, I am in the process of doing my counselling qualifications. I would like to be able to offer something back to the community.

I have a fantastic property and I am regenerating the rainforest there and it will be at least another fifteen years before that will be finished.

I have lots of goals which I have not yet got to, but I am working to all of them. I can’t emphasise enough that you have got to have something to work towards. It does not have to be the extravagant holiday, but there are lots of things that you can work towards. One of my other little goals is to get myself back into shape and I do that every morning.

I think goals motivate you. I write them down so that I have reminders about them. I put money away for my Paris birthday. I think it is just saying to yourself: ‘Well, what is important to you now?’, and if that’s what is important, well make it important. I got a massive bill last week and I had to take some of my Paris money out to pay that bill, but that does not mean that Paris is not still a reality, I can still do it, I just have to look at how I can meet that goal.

I think that it is important to stretch yourself to do something that you are not really comfortable with. If you hate public speaking, go along and do a public speaking course; you learn about yourself and build confidence and you mix with people. I have recently decided that there is more to life than working behind the desk, so I have started learning how to do French polishing and at the course I have met such an incredibly diverse range of people who I would never have associated with. It’s great.

don’t live your life around HIV: learn to live your life as you normally would.