"It DOES get better."

I just saw the It Gets Better Public Service Announcement-style campaign that show different GLBT people and allies assuring young GLBT people who are bullied that it does get better as you get older. I can attest to that promise. The most recent example I can raise up is the most joyous time I had celebrating my 40th birthday. I celebrated my birthday on Friday the 13th this year and what is often considered a day fraught with bad luck turned out to be a day filled with love.

I felt as though a festival had been planned, when to my amazement, I answered the door on Thursday, and there stood my best friend Sue and her little sister Chrissy. I had been expecting them, but not until the following day. It truly set the tone for a fun filled weekend.

I also enjoyed all the campy birthday cards designed to poke fun at hitting that milestone year. Of course, many of them had a play on the "f-word." Forty being the f-word in question. And although the cards were meant to play on feelings of being old or out of touch, I don't feel that way at all. I really do think that my forties will be fabulous. Admittedly, I sometimes still struggle with feeling fragmented; however, I have arrived in a place in my life where I have learned to stop and enjoy the moment, so it's not lost in fretting over the future or in regretting the past.

At times during that weekend of blessings, I would step outside of the festivities long enough to recognize how blessed I am with the dearest of friends and the best wife and kids a girl could ask for. I had my local "best-ies" who help Donna and I raise our children here in New Jersey and my best friend of the past 27 years surrounding me. My days and nights were full of laughter and reminiscing. On Friday Sue and Chrissy and I explored the amazing City of New York and returned home to have an unforgettable dinner at the Crab House in Edgewater, NJ, with a spectacular view of the NYC skyline. On Saturday, I enjoyed a fun and relaxing cookout at home with dear friends and all of our children.

As I witnessed a Nerf gun fight break out in which there were as many adults playing as there were children, I knew my cup truly runneth over. What I also realized, for those young readers out there, was that most of the people surrounding me were heterosexual. So, to all of you out there worried that you can't take the bullying for one more minute, please take heart in knowing that it does indeed get better. Perhaps one day if you're as blessed as we are, you can hear your best friend asking you where your wife learned how to cook so well.