Peter Staley approached me several weeks ago with a new idea for the Aidsmeds website. He envisaged a selection of blogs written by people living with HIV and I was thrilled to be asked to participate. Then came the hard part; I had to sit down and write about my life.

I’ve been wrestling with this task these past few weeks, trying to decide how much of me to share with you in these pages. I am a 41 - soon to be 42 - year-old woman living with HIV but that isn’t the whole of me. The label of HIV positive doesn’t begin to describe the length and breadth of my life, nor does it tell you with whom I share my life or where on this planet I do my living. In writing this blog I hope to help you to see beyond the label, to understand that those of us who live day to day with this virus coursing through our veins are more than nameless statistics. We are your friends, your neighbours, your co-workers and your families. In order to show you this, I have to let you in and I have to trust you - and I’ll tell you now, it’s scary. It’s a leap of faith in the over-all goodness of humanity.

We are all Living in the Time of HIV and this is my story of my life in this era. This blog is my voice, one warbling alto in the chorus of millions. We might not always agree on the song and our voices may sometimes clash, but I invite you to come sing along.