Thanksgiving

Yum, I love thanksgiving. I love the meal (mashed potatoes!, green bean casserole!, stuffing!, pumpkin pie with whip cream! yum!). Also, each year we go out with two of our friends that live here in the city as well and who don't go home for the holidays. We are very connected to Mike & Lauren. I met Lauren when I was the assistant swim coach at NYU (she swam - she is an amazing athlete)....Derek and I were introduced through Lauren, and I returned the favor a year later and introduced her to Mike, whom I taught with during my couple years as a teacher. We also coached basketball together - what an experience. In any event, we are married now, they are married now, and they are certainly two of the best people I have ever met.

Which leads to one point of this blog - what I am thankful for. Whenever I am feeling down, or need some reassurance that things will work out, I always list in my head what I am thankful for. It takes quite a while, because I am specific - I think of each person, of each quality that I have, of each opportunity or experience - and the list is long. When I try to generalize it, it seems like it doesn't do it justice - the people or the things that I am thankful for deserve so much more than I can give them in a short list.

Which leads to another point of this blog - short lists, and a particular short list. The other night I pulled out this box of stuff in order to make sure some things were in there. I had a panic that during our move to New York in 2005, I didn't know where I put a disc with some of our wedding pictures or the handkerchief that I used to wrap the bottom of my bouquet. It was my "something old" and was one of my grandfather's hankerchief's, who had passed away in 1994. We got married on July 4 (2002) and my memories of the 4th have always been tied to my grandpa. It wasn't the only reason we chose that day, but it certainly added to how special it was.

Anyway, I came across a number of things I had saved (including exactly what I was looking for! so happy I know that I placed these items in a safe place), including this "list" of qualities I wanted in a significant other. It was written on a small thin piece of paper that I recognized as slips that are available in library to jot things down. Although I am sure I have been in a library since college (during my masters program, as a teacher, during law school....), I know I had this slip from when I worked in a library during college - and I had written it with a pencil, and the pencil was fading but still clearly readable. The "qualities" were quite simple - and can't even really be called "qualities". I guess it was more a list of what I wanted in a relationship with someone. Someone to laugh with; someone to hold me when I cry; someone who likes to dance; someone who wants my opinion; someone who i want to talk to right before i go sleep. I think there was one other. I think I wrote this in 1996 - maybe 1995. Happy to say, all items are checked off and seem so very very pale in comparison to what I actually have!:) (Funny how you think you know what is really important when you are 21 or 22, but you are either far off or at least very narrow in what you know). It was a nice reminder.....Which even the most grateful, let alone me, need sometimes!