To VD or not VD...

So last Saturday was VD, a made-up holiday that I'm not all that interested in. This stems(snerk) from my mother being a florist and hating any and all made-up holidays. However, I think she's changed her mind about certain made-up holidays since attending Comb Day and Balls Out, so let's just say she hates any and all made-up holidays that involve flowers. I can't say I blame her, I can't imagine a place that would be worse to work in than a flower shop on VD...except maybe Hallmark...or Sybaris...but I don't think I'd ever want to work at Sybaris...its seems...sticky...to me...and def a place where you could get a VD on VD which is no kind of VD gift...now I don't feel good. Anyfauxmance, while I'm not a fan of VD(or the other VD), I have a wife who is fond of it(VD, but not that VD), so we tend to celebrate it every year. This year, we VD'd at home w/ delicious and a movie...no, not a romance...not a comedy, guess again...nope, horror movie wasn't it...we watched "Prayers For Bobby", a Lifetime movie starring Sigourney Weaver as the uber religious mother of a gay man who ends up killing himself. Not exactly the feel-good movie of the year. This movie totally pantsed me, I was a puddle of sadness throughout, tears streaming down my face, sobs catching in my chest, snot seeping from my nose, The Joyous One asking me every 10 minutes if I was okay, me answering "yes" just by nodding for fear that if I spoke I would lose my sh*t. Don't get me wrong, PFB had it's positive moments and by the end I was perched on the edge of my couch, waving my rainbow flag emphatically...for real. But it did get me thinking about something that is long overdue...

...a thank you. I have been dizzyingly lucky in my life, especially my gay life...which I guess is just my regular life now...and actually always was my regular life. Anyqueereye, I don't really know anyone who has gotten the type of support that I've gotten from my friends and family, whom I affectionately call my "18 Hour Playtex Posse"...only they don't know I call them that...except now they do. I hear horror stories about friends de-friending, families disowning, gay people everywhere being abandoned by the people they thought loved them. And that's what they are to me, horror stories, because I have never, ever known that kind of pain thanks to the utterly amazing people that surround me. My COP(coming out process) is a testament to that. Everyone reacted as if they were waiting for me to realize what they already knew, and waiting for me to love myself as I was, because they already did, and when I said those words, "I'm gay", I was being hugged before the word "gay" even escaped my lips. As I've collected more friends along the way, and continued my COP(it never ends people, for as long as I'm alive I'll be coming out), my new friends have met that same high standard that my old friends set, without me even hinting that they had a lot to live up to. My friends continue to amaze me every day and I am thankful for them every day and I wish I remembered to tell them that every day. If only I could have all of you stand up and take a bow, I would...I mean sure, I'd be the only one clapping, but I'm a loud clapper...it would seem like more.

I have to do a special "thank you" section for my parents...but how do I even begin to thank them? They were the perfect couple to have a gay kid, they've done everything right and every reaction to my homosexuality has been heartwarmingly startling. Pretty sure "heartwarmingly" is not a word, but when has that stopped me? AnyPFLAG, back to my parents. I don't know if there was ever any disappointment about me being gay, because they have never voiced that to me. I don't know if they ever felt sad about what "could have been", they were too busy telling me they loved me because of who I was. I don't know if they ever felt ashamed, because when I attended my first Pride Parade, PFLAG came strolling down Broadway and there were my parents, giving me the surprise of my life by celebrating how proud they were. They have marched in pretty much every parade since. Not only that, but they are deeply entrenched in the fight for equality, they take it as a personal attack on them because I don't have any rights. And to top it off, my mom is president of the local PFLAG chapter, and my dad attends every meeting by her side. They are much better activists than I could ever imagine being. They are what every gay child, gay teen, and gay adult hopes for in a set of parents. And they are all mine.

So thank you, thank you, thank you...all of you...for making my story one of the happy ones and not one of the horror ones.