Don’t ask me why, but I used to be pretty certain that I would die young. Sadly, the belief was only perpetuated when I came out of the closet 12 years ago.  It wasn’t until 2003 that I came face to face with being HIV-positive, determined not to let the diagnosis suffocate me.

In the years since, I’ve met a couple of men in their 90s, one of them is Jack LaLanne, the father of fitness and a pretty major inspiration to me personally. And then there’s Val Lewis, the patriarch of the Lewis family of San Francisco, who embraced me with open arms when I first met him 11 years ago.

Of course, I don’t know how long I’m going to live, but both of these men have inspired me to re-think my own intention of what’s possible in old age. And now I intend to live to see my 100th birthday.

This cool aging calculator says I’m pretty much on target. I just gotta floss more.