For the month of November I’m participating in a daily gratitude challenge posted by the journaling app that I use, Day One, and here’s today’s prompt:

Write a letter of gratitude to someone I’ve always wanted to thank ….

Wow. What a wonderful challenge. In that I’m doing this in (virtual) public and I want to respect the privacy of others, I will address this prompt in a more ‘round-about fashion. While I miss my folks’ presence and personality, I feel like everything I needed to say or that they needed to say to me was said. I wish the conversation was still ongoing but I don’t feel as if there was anything to add. 

As I mentioned in previous challenges, I’ve been most fortunate in having had numerous people in my life… so when I think about today’s challenge, it’s not so much thinking of someone I want to or need to write a thank you letter to, but many friends and lovers whom I’ve lost touch with that I would love to see how they’re doing. Over the many years and many miles I’ve worked with, played with and spent time with some amazing people, and a few are no longer with us. I wish the occasional conversation was much more a part of my life. 

I called a former girlfriend one time, it had been a couple years since we’d seen each other and this was before the days of Social Networking, I left a message just saying “Hi, how are things” with her sister. The next time I called the sister told me that she had passed on my message, but that her sister didn’t remember who I was. That’s an extreme example of reasons to let the past stay the past. In all honesty, at this late stage in the game, it might take some work to come up with this particular girlfriend’s name… but there are a few remaining brain cells that carry a memory of her and a question of how things went after our very brief time together. I have that question about folks I played music with during different eras in my journey. The teachers from the eight different school I taught at, we went through a lot, and I felt like I had some really genuine friends. But, new school year, new school, the daily grind left very little time or energy to keep up with anyone not in my daily direct line of sight. I get that. 

There’s nothing preventing me from picking up with phone and making some calls. I do have a very small group of friends whom I’ll invade their evening with a call, usually when something reminds me of something and I’ve been enjoying an IPA or two… And I hear from others via very intermittent text messages or messages on social media that can have month’s long gaps between message and reply. That’s nice, but obviously it’s not the same as extended conversations on a more regular basis. 

So, I can’t think of anyone I need to write a letter to whom I’ve always wanted to thank. But I can thing of dozens whom I’d love to chat with, maybe over a couple adult beverages, and just catch up on life. That would be nice. I guess I need to get off my ass and make some of this happen. 

How about you, is there a letter that needs to be written and sent or a call and conversation? Let’s renew or stay connected.