Many times in life we find ourselves trying to strike a balance between various relationships, obligations, and expectations, much like a circus performer displaying his or her balancing skills. Webster defines a balancing act as an attempt to cope with several often conflicting factors or situations at the same time.

The circus image that immediately comes to my mind is a performer wearing white tights and a tutu, riding a unicycle, while balancing spinning plates on long wooden sticks using both hands and his mouth. Entertaining to look at, but you know eventually it’s all going to come crashing down around him. The question is: will he be able to control the chaos, or will everything quickly fall apart and break into a million tiny pieces?

I don’t know how strongly I believe in astrology, but I do admit to reading my horoscope from time to time. Perhaps I find some odd comfort by subscribing to the belief that my fate is decided by forces outside of myself and beyond my control, in order to not have to take full responsibility for the occasional chaos in my own life.

In any event, my sign is Libra, and the symbol for Libra is the scales. In Roman mythology, Libra is considered to be the goddess of balance and truth. I constantly find myself trying to strike an even balance every day of my life, whether it’s at the office, in my relationship, my career, my home, or my family and friends. Much of it has to do with time and scheduling, often it’s dealing with personalities, other times it’s people or groups trying to push their own, hidden agendas.

For me, I’ve come to learn that it’s not so much that everything has to be in balance all the time, because that’s impossible and will eventually drive you crazy. But for my peace of mind, I need to at least strive to achieve that balance. I may not always find it, but at least I’ve made the effort. I need to let go of the end result, because often that is out of my control.

Recently I saw the movie “The Adjustment Bureau” starring Matt Damon. While generally panned by the critics, I found the premise of the movie quite intriguing. Basically, it addresses the conflict between free will and predestination—is there a master plan, are we just pawns being moved about on a chessboard, or can we actually decide our fates and choose our own destiny? I suspect it’s a little of both, in the end.

This issue of Positively Aware looks at the immune system’s paradoxical response to HIV, chronic inflammation. Inflammation is generally a good thing, and helps to ward off infection and help the body to heal. In the case of HIV, however, the inflammation becomes chronic, and never gets switched off, wearing us down, and leading to a whole host of other problems, including heart disease and cancer. A pre-determined response, or predestination, you might call it. But it’s an area in which research is now being done to see if we can intercept or control that response early in the course of infection, so that we don’t encounter problems later on.

We’ve also heard a lot in the news lately about prevention, and you’ll read more about it in this issue as well. Treatment as prevention, in which a person with HIV and who is on anti-HIV medication can lower their viral load to undetectable, and may therefore be less likely to transmit the virus to their partner during sex—does that mean we should put everyone on treatment?

You’ll also read more about the ongoing debate regarding PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis), in which an HIV-negative individual takes anti-HIV medication to lower their risk of becoming infected. When I first came across Nick Litrelis’ story on LifeLube.org, I thought to myself, great story, and one people really need to hear, but how can I possibly run it? And then I thought—how can I not? Nick, who is HIV-negative, in a sero-discordant relationship, and is currently taking PrEP, tells his own very personal journey of how he came to his decision to use it. His story is not without a bit of controversy, and no doubt will raise a few eyebrows. But it’s a story we all need to hear, and a discussion we need to be having.

Life truly is a balancing act. It may not always be pretty, and sometimes it gets messy, but it’s all we’ve got. Make the most of it by staying true to yourself and your ideals, and always try to speak your truth. And hopefully everything else will fall into place.

Take care of yourself and each other.

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