World AIDS Day: Taylor's Story

Today, on World AIDS Day I think about my first foray into advocacy.  And I think of a young woman in Omaha named Taylor.I began my activism working to educate on HIV and AIDS.  I was a young 20-year old in Omaha working with the Nebraska AIDS Project and the American Red Cross on a performance-based education tool that toured classrooms and community spaces to share the stories of local people and their experience with the disease.  We performed monologues that were crafted from personal stories, lit by slide shows of photos from the individual's life.The story I performed was of a high school student in Omaha, Taylor.  She grew up with an absent single mother who worked nights at a bar and was out late routinely.  Taylor's mom come home at 2:00 or 3:00 with various men she met during her shift.  One of these men became a regular boyfriend; he would stay at home while Taylor's mom was working.  Eventually the boyfriend wandered into Taylor's room and raped her, which became a regular practice.  She was only 14.So to escape, Taylor began leaving and going to bars on her own.  She got a fake and flirted with men to get free drinks.  Each night she would go home with one of them in order to avoid going home.  She spent most of her teenage years drunk or high and spent most her evenings in beds that weren't her own. After a fight with her mom she moved out on her own.At school Taylor slept through classes.  Most teachers didn't care but one took notice and convinced Taylor to see a counselor.  Taylor continued to see the counselor to get out of classes, but eventually her skepticism wore away and Taylor began truly opening up.  With the counselor's help, Taylor began to change, to see new goals she wanted to achieve.  She started going to AA, stopped drinking, and finished high school.  She wanted to be a dental assistant and enrolled in community college.  Her life was getting on track.But to be admitted to school Taylor had to take a physical.  The doctor told her she had a number of STIs and that she was HIV positive.  He told her she was to call all her sexual partners to let them know.  She couldn't; she didn't know who most of them were.  She was 19.The 15-minute story was emotionally wrenching to tell.  Some days we would perform at every health class for the entire school, meaning eight repeat devastations before new eyes.  Before days like this I would wake up feeling sick to my stomach.  I would say, "I don't want to have HIV today."  I was lucky; I could blink it away after the performance.Although the story sticks with me, Taylor is not the one who I think of the most on World AIDS Day.  I think of the thousands of people I talked to about the threat of HIV and AIDS.  I wonder if any of them have been infected.  I know that statistically it's likely several have been.  But I hope that the questions we answered, the myths we debunked lessened the number a bit.I wish I had a grand lesson to reveal as I close.  Unfortunately, I feel no closer to a grand lesson than I did at 19.