Mike

The last couple of days have been pretty good. Saturday was a bit of a bust - it was Pride Day in Brooklyn and it just poured buckets from the sky. So I've maintained my streak and have managed, after being out for ten years, to have not attended a Pride festival. Well, that's not entirely true… in my first year here, I wandered along the parade route after the parade had ended, and there were all sorts of mini block parties still going on, so I guess I kinda did that one by proxy.

Wow! I just over-sugared my tea while I was talking on the phone with Mike Coffee, wishing him a happy birthday. I'm amazed at how happy that guy is. Of course, if anyone deserves it, he does, having gone through what he did before meeting Teri and having Abby. I just got a really nice birthday card from him - homemade and all! How often do you get that these days?!?

Mike Coffee has grown up to be the kind of man I most admire - a gentle soul, non-judgemental and open-minded, tolerant and smart, opinionated and wise enough to know that what works for him doesn't necessarily work for others. All of which seems to bring a peace to hiim, and to make him shine with a low-key glow.

Of course, there's no way for one person to know another person so well that he' knows his secret pain, and I'm sure Mike's got his own sorrows, but he strikes me, everytime I see him, as someone whose joys outweigh his sorrows. Which seems to me to be pretty rare in today's world. Or at least the world I inhabit.

I think, though, that I'm pretty lucky - my gifts are manifest, even if I occasionally feel as though my troubles are, too. I feel pretty lucky to be alive… pretty happy to be at this place in my life. Pretty lucky to be me.

It's something I can focus on when things hit me that might otherwise throw me off.