Hello You,
Have I told you about my Thankful Thursdays? At the end of last year, I was watching the Today Show and they were interviewing two elementary school teachers, from South Dakota. They were talking about how they started Thankful Thursdays with their class and every Thursday their students would write to someone that they were thankful for. They said, they noticed a considerable improvement in their student’s mood and performance. Such a small act of kindness made a big impact on so many different people. How wonderful is that and why don’t more of us do this?! Well, I wanted to participate in this movement and make this a tradition in my life. I consider myself to be a grateful person, but do I express it enough? I don’t know. I think we could all stand to show a little more gratitude. So I decided to begin in January, and write someone I was thankful for every Thursday of 2021.
The clock was ticking to think of people that I personally knew and are thankful for. I saw the segment at the end of December, and I had until the first Thursday of January to prepare my list and write the first letter. It was harder than you think. It really was, I got to about mid 40s and started to struggle. You know that feeling you get when you try to name all the states and you have 47 but for some reason you can’t think of the last few? Finally, after a few days my list was completed. I came up with 52 people! Wow! It was fun just to come up with the list, and brought back some wonderful memories, I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like to write everyone. Just so no one knew where they fell on the list and how many other names came to mind before theirs, I assigned numbers to everyone in a random order and every Thursday I have Siri pick a number between 1 and 52. Since then, I’ve also added a few more names, so I suppose I will have to continue this longer than a year. I’m ok with that.
What were the odds that the first name picked was one of the hardest letters I would have to write? My dad. I think this was the universe telling me something. I’m not going to lie; I was hoping I had more time to prepare for that one but nope. There are a few other names on this list that will be more challenging to write but I’m ready. I’m grateful for every moment, the good, the bad, the happy, the sad, etc. they’ve all made an impact on my life. I wouldn’t be who I am with out them. I truly believe that people come into your life for a reason, you might not know why at the time or maybe ever, but they were brought to you to teach you something, to help you grow, to make you the person you are supposed to be. I sit here now, Thursday evening and almost ready for bed, writing to you after having written and mailed off another letter today and thinking, “who’s name is going to come up tomorrow?”
xoxo
Letters to You 