It took less than a minute but my heart has just a little under an hour ago been smashed into pieces.
I have been sat at home most of the day cursing this chest infection that has laid me up and will put me out of action for pretty much all of Christmas. I’ve had a week of grumbling about being tired and not getting enough sleep. Fed up with clients cancelling their £300 pound hair appointments with little or no notice. The most stressful thing I have had to endure this week was worrying about would I get into Selfridges to buy my coffee for my £200 pound coffee machine that only takes certain pods. I did get in bright and early and now have enough coffee in the house to give probably every one of you who reads this a cup, if you wanted it.
My fridge is full to bursting with delectable offerings, and lets face it we know a lot of it will go to waste. I saw people at the supermarket act in a manner that can only be described as feral while fighting over a loaf of bread. Clearly they are unaware that the high street will only be closed for approximately 36 hours.
In the coming days and weeks I have much to look forward to, close friends either are or have or will soon be moving into London, I have two new work projects starting immediately after the new year, celebrations that will be both exciting and time consuming. I have a visit to see my family to plan and look forward to. I have a year to look back on just now, a year when I focused on my physical and mental health and I took control of both.
I have a more honest relationship with each and every person I know and loved and I look with excitement to that being the case for many years to come. I set out this year with the specific intention of making friends, lots and lots of friends, and I have succeeded in doing just that. Twitter helped admittedly, but equally so did a positive approach to life that had been missing from me for many years.
About 6pm this Christmas Eve, I decided to go for a walk. Being stuck indoors all day was causing me to feel a little stir crazy, I knew nothing would be open and everyone I know will either have left for wherever they are going or be planning to but I wanted to clear my head.

I walked from where I live in Waterloo across the Thames into Soho. I absolutely love London and just walking though the city never fails to lift my spirits. The dark evening and bracing wind clearing my head and made me glad to be alive almost instantly. I traversed the quiet of Covent Garden and popped into Compton’s of Soho to have an orange juice (on strong anti biotic for my chest or as you that know me know there would have been a double vodka in it.)
I didn’t know anyone there but I picked up one of the free gaypers and sat down to relax. I came across an article by a friend of mine, Kristian Johns. It was one he had written for World AIDS Day and in it he spoke of his troubles with antiretroviral medication over the years. But he also spoke of his love and equal concern for his negative boyfriend. It was as if he was speaking through my own lips, as one of the reasons I have stayed single since my own diagnosis is a fear at being constrained to only being able to date people in my condition. Sero-sorting they call it, and even thinking about it drains the blood from my heart. But reading KJ’s piece gave me a little hope that maybe I too will find what I long for.
So I guess you’re wondering what broke my heart?
As I left to embark on the short walk home, I thought I should stop at a cash point and get some money out. No real reason - there will be nowhere open for me to go and spend it. But I guess I just like to have a little emergency cash lying around. As I walked toward the HSBC at Cambridge Circus and the bank of ATMs there I consciously avoided one side as a homeless person was sitting between the two machines available. The guy looked intimidating and I wanted to get in an out quick.

I ducked round the corner and the inevitable homeless person was sitting there also. I went to the machine two down from where he was sat and pretended to not hear him asking for change. But something made me stop, I don’t know what it was but in hindsight I feel it was serendipity.
I remembered that I actually had a pocket full of change, about £8 in fact and the fact that I was withdrawing £100 in case of emergency suddenly seemed perverse. So I emptied my pocket and went over to give him the contents. As I passed it to him, he thanked me for wearing my red ribbon and told me he was positive. I squatted down and told him I also am HIV+. He started a conversation with me about medication and what he is on, what he has had to go through to get meds and how some had horrific side effects for him.
Now my friend KJ and I who I mentioned earlier are no strangers to the side effects of antiretroviral medication; we were just discussing it this week while I cut his hair.
But suddenly this man (yes I said man) - a man I would normally treat as an obstacle or even worse, a shadow - brought home to me just how lucky I am.
I have a family who love me and would never see me on the street. I have great friends with whom I can be as open and honest as I want without fear of being cast aside. Those same friends gave me a life outside of being defined by HIV, To them I am Denis and that is it, full stop, and period .I have a roof over my head, my flat is small but it is warm and well decorated and it is a place I have where I can spend time alone re-charging when life has all seemingly got too much. I have a career, a career with so many wonderful new opportunities opening up in such a short space of time that when I look at where I was a year ago it's almost unbelievable. I have a book next to me to read when I finish typing. My 48” Sony TV with over 250 channels to choose from is on in the background showing Cirque de Soleil. My feet are up on my comfortable sofa and I have a cup of steaming tea next to me.
I am not a shadow, I am not an obstacle, and I am a happy, healthy, fortunate man.
I'm fortunate to be alive, with money in my pocket. And friends and family a touch of a button away if I need to talk to them.
I do not mean to bring anyone down at Christmas, but just ask you to be mindful and thankful of what you have.
Your family may not buy you the gifts you hoped for; you may end up screaming at each other by sundown tomorrow.
If any or all of that happens, even if they don’t and you have the perfect day . . . .
Give thanks.
Happy Christmas
This post was first published in Denis Robinson's own blog, which you can find here.