Any reflection of me was a reminder of who I was

I avoided looking in mirrors and walking past storefronts. It wasn’t me in the reflection but HIV.

One morning almost a year ago, I had the courage to wake up and look in the mirror. There I discovered something I hadn’t noticed before. It was me. I had not changed. I cast away the stigma that I adopted when I was diagnosed as HIV positive.

Although I can look at my reflection — I see that day-by-day I am stronger. I am not who I was a few years back. I may have lost a little more weight, and have a few strands of grey hair that I call stress but when I see my image I see someone who has taken this disease and called it my own. It is there in the mirror. It is there in those storefronts and will in every picture that will be taken of me from this day forward.

I can’t avoid what is staring back. It’s me. —Author Unknown