I met Mark Tammaro about a year ago at the gym. He walked right up to me and asked if I was married. It made me laugh out loud. I appreciated the directness and as I’ve gotten to know him. That’s Mark. That kind of authenticity is rare and I’m drawn to it every time. We hit it off immediately and became friends.
Over the past year, I’ve watched him take charge of his life. He made decisions that most people would talk themselves out of, and at 62 he powered through every one of them. We’ve had a lot of conversations about life and change, about what it takes to start over. And I kept thinking, this guy needs to be on the show. His story is exactly what A Queer POV is about.
This episode is about reinvention. The real kind. The kind where you walk away from a 16-year marriage, give up the house, the safety net, the comfort, and start over alone at 62 because the life you built wasn’t yours anymore.
Mark talks about all of it. The marriage that worked on paper but left him unfulfilled. The role he played as the supportive husband while his own passions went quiet. The moment he and his ex-husband looked at each other and decided it was over. Not with anger. With love. They still talk every day. They’re still friends. That’s who Mark is.
But his story goes back further than a divorce. Mark contracted HIV almost 35 years ago. His partner at the time died in his arms two days after Mark’s 30th birthday. In 1992, that was a death sentence. You didn’t plan a future. You lived whatever you had left. Mark didn’t think he’d make it past 35.
Because of AIDS, a lot of us weren’t supposed to be here. Our generation lost so many men that we didn’t have a blueprint for what growing older as a queer man even looks like. Like the rest of us, Mark is figuring that out day by day.
He’s 62 now. Healthier than he was 20 years ago. And he just went back to school. I watched him do it. Every day in the gym lounge after lifting, books open, nine weeks straight. He became a certified personal trainer. Got an A on the final. He rediscovered that he loves learning, that he’s good at it, that he’d set that part of himself aside for years without realizing it.
There’s a moment in this conversation where Mark says “I’m proud of myself” and you can hear that he means it.
This one’s for anyone who thinks starting over has an expiration date. It doesn’t.
Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it. That’s how we take care of each other.
Be bold, be free, and most of all, be you.
-- David
A Queer POV: Friends, Loves, & Life with David
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