Maybe I'm amazed

In the spirit of my "thanks" post from yesterday - as well as the whole feelings of "Spring is finally here”, “Thank God for the extra sunlight and warmth" and the celebration of Easter, I’d like to publically acknowledge people who are (or have been) in my life that have made an amazing difference to me.

First is a thank you to four men I met waaay back in 1982 … KW, HK, GW, and VD (actual initials, I kid you not) for teaching me the value of the proper expression and remaining true to oneself, even if you sound foolish doing so. Sometimes you must just say what you mean, without worrying about how educated or intelligent everyone else is and how you’ll be judged by them. Tom Cruise paraphrased this as “sometimes you just gotta say ‘what the …’”, but I learned it best from those four men.

From there, I need to nod to KD (whom I’ve known since she was KB) and NT (whom I’ve known since she was NB). Tho’ separated by years, miles (and occasionally silence), these two women know, laugh, cry, love and yell at, with, about, and to me. I’ve disappointed them more times than they’ll EVER admit (and they’ve occasionally scared the crap outta me, too), but it’s changed nothing about how we feel about each other. Considering the challenges we’ve tossed before each other, that’s rather enormous.

Onwards, I must smile to ES, TE, VB, JS, SG, and JP. These men ... each in their own ways … have educated me in the course of “life”. Not all of them are in my life today, for various reasons, but the lesson I picked up is still there. I hope that maybe I taught them a thing or two along the way, too. Otherwise I’d feel downright greedy.

And last, but by no means least, I’d like to shine a light on the 11 women and 5 men who have shocked me – left me positively gob-smacked – by reaching out, sharing their stories, lending support … and their general outpouring of love (and, in one truly amazing case, significant amounts of chocolate) over the past 45 days.

It may seem to be a stretch, considering some of my most recent entries, that I have a “be thankful” entry today. It’s no secret that 2008 has *not* been my favorite year thus far and this may be as good as it gets. But these 28 people, over the course of my life, have left their individual amazing marks, even by doing things that they’d probably deem as insignificant. It’s just my opinion that they’d be wrong in that assessment, and that’s enough to be thankful for.