An old acquaintance approached me at the Pride parade today.  She was proudly wearing her I ♥ New York t-shirt.

She had come to the parade to show her support of her cousin still living in NYC and possibly her son, but we didn’t go there.

When we worked together we never discussed politics or sexual orientation.  I was semi-closeted at the time because it was a government job and knew the opinions of my superiors at the time.  I know, I know., but let’s get real – I needed the job.

Tiger, as she was called must have known something was up because she made the comment to me once, “I really like watching Queer as Folk”.  I replied, “That’s nice, don’t watch it myself, but okay.”  My partner will tell you, I’m not the quickest to catch on to things.

It was a quiet outreach, a sort of underground communique that let me know that I had an ally and I did appreciate it despite my inelegant response.

But today at our home town parade, Tiger came up to me and reintroduced herself and we were able to speak openly and with matter of fact about how proud she was of New York of passing the legalization of gay marriage bill. Time and age had given us both confidence.

Another friend posted a great photograph of a statement that also hit home with the theme of this weekend.  It reminded me that Pride is not only about having the confidence about being oneself and the camaraderie of having all those people of like around you, but to me its also about showing to the rest of the world that we are no different just because of who we love.

I go to work everyday to support my family.  We pay taxes and worry about our children’s education and future.  We have pets and have memberships to the YMCA.  We have cranky days and days full of wonderment. We teach, we learn, we are good citizens and bad ones, too.  The full gamut of the rainbow of humanity.

We are just people.

 It’s not gay marriage; it’s just marriage, as simple and as complicated as everyone else’s.

It’s taken 42 years since Stonewall to get six states to agree.  I hope that my blog name will not be fullcnote before the rest of the country follows suite.