Assuming I get this story published when it should be published, today is my birthday. I pretty much always post a story on my birthday and that story is always for the most part a fundraiser. Last year I turned 70; I think the piece I wrote then did pretty well. In it I discussed the experience of aging. Surprising, I know. Apologies in advance that I’ll be covering similar ground this year. It’s kind of unavoidable.
Most of the time I don’t feel especially old. And really, if your mother is still alive that helps. She 96 ½ years old. Our birthdays are precisely six months apart. And how can you feel old if your mother is still alive?
The flip side of course is that I am undeniably a senior. I’ve got the Medicare card and senior discounts to prove it. As I’ve noted multiple times over the years I contracted HIV at the end of 1980, or at any rate no later than May 29, 1981. On that date a blood specimen was drawn from me as part of the clinical trial for the Hepatitis B vaccine. It was later tested for HIV and came up positive. The previous draw taken three months earlier tested negative. But while I don’t, and didn’t at the time I received notification, recall any sort of suspicious illnesses during the previous three months despite the fact that I was not exactly being celibate, I did in fact recall becoming horribly sick the previous December. And there was other evidence to support the theory that I was infected on December 5, 1980 by a guy named Chris who told me several years later that he had tested HIV-positive.
It was in the fall of 1998 that I began my now serious habit of riding a bike from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Just before that first ride, California AIDS Ride 6, which took place in 1999 following eight months of training and a couple of serious crashes, I turned 48. Seemed old then, seems young now. The following year I was invited to be interviewed by a reporter from KTLA in Los Angeles about my experience as a person living with HIV. My status was not something I was used to discussing with strangers though there were <cough> some situations in which such a discussion was appropriate. There was something quite freeing though about publicly disclosing my status and discussing my experiences. It has served me well since then.
I’ve continued riding year after year, only skipping 2002. The California AIDS Ride became AIDS/LifeCycle due to a change in the way the ride was produced. The for-profit producer was fired and the beneficiaries assumed direct responsibility for staging the event. That improved the proportion of funds raised that ultimately flows to the beneficiaries and their clients which is on the order of 70% currently. Like its predecessor AIDS/LifeCycle raises money to provide both prevention and treatment services in order to reduce the number of new HIV infections in and around San Francisco and LA. That work also includes addressing inequities in access to health care as well as the stigma that continues to surround HIV/AIDS and the racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and xenophobia that almost invariably come with it.
For many years I rode each mile of the ride, some years I did not. Early on when that happened it was due to an extenuating circumstance; dehydration, fatigue from being kept up all night by a sick tentmate, mechanical problems not readily resolved by the side of the road. One year I broke my collarbone a month prior to the ride; they had me accompany the official photographer which turned out to be an enormously enriching experience for me. In two instances a day was either entirely or partially canceled because of the weather. Evidence of climate change. The first time it rained while I was riding it was a light rain that fell mostly overnight; we just picked up and kept going and it was over and done with pretty before 9 a.m. . Not so the other times when the weather was severe enough that the route had to be closed in the interest of safety. More recently though I’ve simply run out of juice and have had to stop early because of pain or muscle fatigue.
My trainer has explained to me more than once that fast twitch muscles, the ones engaged while climbing hills on a bike among other things, age more quickly than most other muscles. That means it takes longer for them to recover not just between one day and the next but between one climb and the next. It’s no wonder I get sore more easily and have to do more to manage it.
There was no ride in 2020 or 2021. Last year there was a substitute event called TogetheRide which involved riding locally either solo or in small groups and using that accomplishment as a basis for fundraising. So I stayed busy on my bike, at least from late June of 2020 onward. In a sense I have been training for 23 months to be ready for this year’s ride. Over the past six months I’ve struggled though; it’s almost like I’m un-training. I sometimes have to walk my bike up hills; even some I successfully navigated in 2020 and 2021. That never used to happen. During my final two weeks of training I had to avail myself of cars, which fortunately were available. I didn’t quite finish last Saturday’s grand finale 100-mile ride. I rode 85 miles. It was a really tough one; even in those 85 miles there was nearly 5,000 feet of climbing. I did a century in April. It had 3,100 feet of climbing. It was tougher than I expected and because I missed a turn I ended up with only 97 miles. But that was close enough.
It’s the expectations that are the killer. I still think I should be able to ride the way I did when I was 50 or 60 or 65. Of course that’s not realistic. The fact that some of the change has seemed relatively rapid is the hardest part to get past. It takes a certain amount of emotional work to get past those expectations. Fortunately I have plenty of help, possibly because I talk about it incessantly. My trainer loves to point out that most people my age aren’t capable of only riding 85 of 100 miles of a bike ride. Even without any climbing at all. Other people remind me I have nothing to prove. Mostly my body likes to remind me that if I go past my limits there will be a cost.
So even though I’m old and even though I might not ride every mile, and even though this isn’t a round-number birthday, and even though I beat my original goal so I had to raise it, I’m still asking you to make a donation, in any amount, to support my fundraising efforts for AIDS/LifeCycle 2022. Because that particular epidemic has been going on for 41 years now. There’s no cure, there’s no vaccine but there are ways to keep it from spreading that didn’t exist 41 years ago.
Sidenote:
A few things made it more complicated and challenging to produce this story. I mean it’s nearly 4 p.m. and I haven’t posted it yet. By this time last year my story had gotten lots of attention and I received tons of donations. And I discovered yesterday that last year’s story had been nominated for a Koscar Award. It didn’t win but still it was an honor to have been nominated. Meanwhile my partner either does or doesn’t have COVID. He was exposed at work, likely last week. He has some symptoms. He’s tested negative on two at-home tests but I took him to the hospital for a PCR test yesterday. Meanwhile my mom was extra generous and at around the time and got me to my goal sort of prematurely. It was great but it took away a bit of momentum. Good thing I always raise my goal when I reach it early!
I’ve become a pretty decent fundraiser; it’s definitely a skill.