In the month of Thanksgiving, a meme was running around Facebook that I unfortunately didn't pick up until halfway through. I wish I had sooner, as I would have done it too. The meme was this: every day of this month of Thanksgiving, name something for which you're thankful. A brilliant idea, especially if you're committed to it: it helps you to wake up even on your crappiest of days and try to find something positive to focus on instead. Because even one, tiny positive thought could change your day and attitude around, right?
So now it's December and I've decided to take a task on myself similar to that. It's the last month of the year and a bittersweet crazy season for me. I'm not going to do a daily thing now (saving the 12 Days of Christmas for that, yo!), but I am going to count off the monthly *people* I've been thankful this year, 2011. There are many more each month than I can mention here, but I'm just going to choose one each month for the sake of not writing a 10,000 page blog entry.
This is for you, my peeps.
January
The place: Phoenix, Arizona
The peeps: my brother Steve and my mama
The pics: https://www.facebook.com/#!/media/set/?set=a.491123041629.269206.654896629&type=1
There had never been a time where just my mom, my younger brother and I had just the three of us together and no one else. Mom and I both flew out to Phoenix to visit Steve in his gorgeous new home. We cooked together, watched some movies, did tourist sites, shopped for his home. We kicked back on the couch and drank rum and cokes, talked until all hours of the night and gave each other crap like only family members who love each other can. What an amazing way to start the year. I should have realized then it was a sign of more amazing things to come.
Even if I had to get through some bad stuff first. It's a-comin'.
February
The place: Marietta, Georgia
The peeps: Aron, Jacki, Scott
The pics: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.502099911629.274916.654896629&type=1
You know how you always talk to old friends and say you should reconnect and do something now and again? Yeah. These are the folks who walk the talk. February reconnected me with some old friends and and a constant one: just a simple day out on the town, doing dinner and a play. I don't know if they knew it, but it had been ages since I did something like that and it was soooo good for my psyche. The bad stuff was building. So it was not only to have a "day out," but to do it with friends I hadn't been able to do it with for *years.* It also helped me to realize what I had already known: I had to make some changes in my life. To reconnect with folks, yes. But also to change some things about my own life, my relationships, my living situation, to make sure I could walk the talk, too.
And it happens soon. It does!
March
The place: Tybee Island, Georgia
The peeps: Dianne, Gina, Hilary, Tim, Lisa, Darrell, other hasher folks
The pics: https://www.facebook.com/media/albums/?id=654896629#!/media/set/?set=a.10150114771441630.283974.654896629&type=1
People come into your life for a reason. I think my friend Dianne dated my friend Jay not only because they truly care about each other, but because I was meant to meet her precious soul somehow. I had met her the year before but this year we got to spend more time together: for her big 4-0 and her dear friend Gina's big 3-o... a dual birthday celebration down in Tybee Island.
This tickles me because when I think about it now? I realize I didn't even KNOW her in March of 2010. But yet in 2011, I was there to celebrate, live, laugh, love, drink, eat, shop, swim, bar-crawl and just overall be merry with her. How can I NOT be thankful for this month? :-)
Then came April.
April
The place: Gainesville and Atlanta, Georgia
The peeps: Anne and Jennifer
The pics: none
This was a tough month, for real. I had to get out of my living situation quicker than I thought because of an ugly situation and I really had no idea what to do. I thought I would couch-surf for a while. Maybe rent a hotel for a week or two (most likely on borrowed money, fo sho)? But these two ladies stepped up tenfold for me. This month, as ugly as it started, ended in such joy because the two women mentioned above took me and my Oy kitty in when I had nowhere else to go and they really had no obligation to do it. It restored my faith in the fact that people actually DO things for others, not expecting anything in return. Looking back, this should be the toughest month I had this year. Because of them, I not only survived it, but I can look back on it now and actually think: for your worst month, Stae? It wasn't so bad afteall.
May
The place: Midtown! Finally!
The peeps: Penny, Chris, Scott, Jennifer, Chris2, Aron, Hilary, Leigh Ann, Nancy, others....
The pics: none
The folks mentioned above are nothing less than angels on earth. They stored my belongings when I had nowhere to go. They borrowed and gassed-up trucks and trailers, helped me pack and move boxes and bins and furniture into my new beloved place (with singing radiators!) without asking a thing in return. They welcomed me with gifts of champagne and candles and blessings for my new home, expressing happiness that I was now a new neighbor even if we hadn't spoken in years. April was a mess; May was a joy. Solely because of these folks.
June
The place: Atlanta and Tybee, Georgia (again!)
The peep: Mark, aka Roland
The pics: https://www.facebook.com/media/albums/?id=654896629#!/media/set/?set=a.10150206650046630.313388.654896629&type=1
I was fortunate enough to reconnect in person with someone I had dated briefly in college. We didn't work out then because we were very different people. But we got a chance to visit again this month, 20 years after we had seen each other previously. We're still very different people now (though more similar than we were then, ironically) and his visit ended up as a blessing that I now have a new, actual friend in my life again: the kind of friend that you know you both want the best for each other always. A surprise blessing, June brought me. You could've knocked me over with a feather had you told me in January that would have happened.
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So... that's the first half of the year (and the first half of this blog), and we've already been through the worst, I promise! July to December is coming next, full of ridiculously good people: a new nephew, other reconnections not only with the woman who I consider my little sister (who I hadn't spoken to in years), but also a gingered-haired angel and the first real friend I ever had from way back in childhood.
Wow. I'm so glad I'm doing this. I started writing this thinking I might have a few things to feel so happy about. Now I'm a little overwhelmed at how amazing it's really been.
I don't think I even knew it until now.
Gosh, I guess that's why I like writing.
Onto part 2!
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