Samus Starbody + Zeus

I had just celebrated my twenty-first birthday when I went to the doctor for the checkup that changed my life. I still remember that moment so vividly. It was the Wednesday after Easter, April 3, 2013, and the nurse told me that my HIV test had come back positive. Everything went dark. I wanted to cry but couldn’t. The clinic was almost an hour from where I went to school at the University of Illinois at Chicago. On the ride back, I tried to keep my mind blank for as long as possible so I wouldn’t do something irrational. When I finally got to my dorm room, I broke down and spent the next week in bed, crying and sleeping. 

I can’t lie—I had been behaving badly. After a bad breakup months earlier, I had been yearning for attention. I told myself I was taking control of my sexuality and my body at the time, but the reality was that I had been acting irresponsible and reckless, and I knew that wasn’t me. After my diagnosis I felt like I should’ve known better. I kept thinking, Maybe if you had focused on your art, or on your friends, or expressed yourself a little bit more, then you might not have gotten this. 

The last month of my junior year was a blur. I came home for summer break depressed. I wasn’t laughing as much. I wasn’t enjoying the things I used to. I dressed differently, talked differently—I was just going through the motions. It was my dog, a Maltese Poodle named Wynter I’d had since I was a sophomore in high school, who comforted me. While my sister was with her dad and my mom was at work, me and Wynter developed a closeness we didn’t have before. I’d sit and talk to her, and she would stare into my eyes and listen to any and everything. She wouldn’t let me sleep for too long, but when I did go to sleep, I’d roll over to find her head on my pillow next to me. She understood that I was in pain. If I ever got upset, she’d lick my face or try to encourage me to go outside. 

Before HIV, I rarely got sick and was used to running and dancing every day. I wasn’t used to feeling weak and lethargic all the time. It was different when I was with Wynter, though. Every time I took her out, she was so excited that I couldn’t help but be excited too. Her positivity was infectious. When I was feeling good, we would race and she would cut in front of me to stop me from winning, which made me laugh. No matter what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go, Wynter was beside me. She was almost like my nanny. Even though I was supposed to be taking care of her, she was taking care of me. 

When I returned to school for my senior year, I was able to channel the frustration and anger over my HIV diagnosis into my work. I found a way to bring my art into my business classes, which I had previously dreaded but took because my parents pushed me to. Once I made that connection, I excelled and ended up having my most successful year in college.

Knowing I was sick and had to take medication every day was hard for me. My body did not take to the pills. I started getting patches of dry skin and couldn’t be in the sun. If I took them even three minutes later than my scheduled time, I was in pain and eventually I decided to stop taking my medication altogether. 

I went without medication for two years, and it everything seemed fine. I got a job at Michaels art supply store and became their most decorated manager. Customers loved me because I loved them—I genuinely appreciated their business and speaking with them about art. Being on the move and helping people made me feel better about myself and took my mind off my condition. But I became a workaholic, trying to prove that I could still be at the top of the pack as I had been before HIV. When Michaels changed its corporate strategy and laid off their managers, including me, I felt lost again. At the same time, my family moved to a new house in a rougher neighborhood and Wynter couldn’t run around as much. I could feel things were changing and she was slowing down.

The morning of my twenty-fourth birthday, my friend died in a car accident. After that loss, I connected with a mutual friend named Andre through our grief. He and I were both active people, so having to sit back and process what we were going through was uncomfortable, but that brought us closer together. Eventually we fell in love, and Wynter fell in love with Andre too. My goodness, sometimes she would pay more attention to him than to me! He cared for her like his daughter. He would research new recipes to make for her, and it got to the point where if he didn’t feed her, she wouldn't eat. I was a little jealous, but I understood he was trying to care for and love on her the way he wished he could for the friend we lost. 

It had been a stressful year, which was hard on my body. When we committed to each other, Andre pushed me to start taking my HIV medicine again and be more on top of my health. He took me to every doctor’s appointment and read up on my medications and what I could and could not eat with them. As he became a more central part of my life, it felt like Wynter was passing the torch to him. 

Occasionally, the pain we were both feeling would come out and we would lash out at each other. One morning we got into a fight and I decided to take Wynter with me for a walk. I didn’t put on her leash like I usually do, because Andre had started training her to walk without one and she was good at it. Andre was much rougher when he disciplined Wynter on their off-leash walks, which bothered me. As we were walking that morning she started to go into someone’s yard, I reached for her but she bolted like I was going to hit her. At that moment, a car was barreling down the street and they met in the intersection. She died right in front of my eyes. 

One of the first thoughts I had when I tested positive was, “Am I going to be able to have kids?” Wynter had become my child. I carried her home, wailing at the top of my lungs. My family tried to console me but I felt like a piece of my heart had died with her that day. For weeks, I’d come home expecting to find her barking on the other side of the door, and it hurt every time I was met with silence. 

A month later, my cousin texted me. She had a greyhound puppy she couldn’t keep, and she wanted to know if I would take him. I was apprehensive at first, having just gone through such a big loss, but my mom and sister pushed the idea. “This might be good for you,” they said. Eventually I caved and met Zeus. 

Zeus was extremely shy. I was used to Wynter, who would run down the street to try to get on the bus with me. The first night Zeus stayed with us we heard a loud squeak coming from a toy he was playing with. Andre and I turned around and Zeus, noticing he was caught, put his paws over his face to hide his embarrassment. It was adorable. After that, I understood him. He was silly, and he was going to be the one to make us laugh. The next day, officially attached to him, Andre and I brought him to the dog park. As soon as we let him off leash, he bolted. In that moment, the memory of Wynter came rushing back and my stomach dropped. I held my breath and willed myself to sit down, bracing myself to be hurt again. But when I looked up, there was Zeus, rushing back toward me. 

Where Wynter provided the comfort and consistency I needed to overcome my HIV diagnosis, Zeus is an embodiment of new healthy relationships and embracing this next chapter of my life. If I thought that Wynter pushed me to get up and out, Zeus is on another level. When he’s ready to go, he jumps on the bed to wake me up, and once we’re outside he can run for hours. He loves riding in the car and going for hikes. Zeus pushes me to be more active and more disciplined—as a human and an artist. When Art AIDS America—an exhibition on how AIDS has affected the US—came to Chicago and they needed people to give tours, something told me it might be good for me. As I went through the works, I felt my story wasn’t being represented, so I wrote poems connecting each piece on display to a different phase in my own journey with HIV. With every person who was willing to join my tour and listen, a weight was lifted—I felt I didn’t have to hide anymore. 

In hindsight, I feel like my HIV diagnosis was a way for the universe to tell me during a time of pain, “This is not the type of life you’re meant to live.” Since then, and with the help of Wynter and Zeus, it feels like I am finally realizing what the universe intended.