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:

Who are three people in my life that I am grateful for?

Seriously, DayOne, are you trying to get me in trouble? There’s no way that I can limit my “people I’m grateful for” to a list of just three people… Sorry, there are just too many people who have helped me along the way to limit myself to just three… So…. Instead of listing three important individuals, I’ll list three important “collections” of folks:

• Mom and Dad. It’s pretty obvious, no them/no me…. But it’s much more than that. They made all kinds of choices and sacrifices and beliefs on our behalf, and they, of course, benefitted from decisions made by their parents, etc. For all of their faults and shortcomings, for all of our disagreements and tears, in the end I realized that they loved us and were doing their best. Thanks mom and dad.
• The siblings and childhood friends: thanks for putting up with me during my early years. It may have been a good experience, it may have been a difficult one. I like being the person I’ve become and I know a lot of that comes from the adventures I/we had as children. Thanks for being a co-conspirator/co-adventurer/antagonist/participant/victim/unfortunate witness. If you’re reading these words, it looks like you came out okay on the other side. Cheers and thanks.
• Significant-Others/Girlfriends/Lovers: If ever there were those I should be most thankful and apologetic towards… It’s been a journey. Talk about starting out not knowing shit about anything, but plunging forward nonetheless… fun with hormones… now all I got is this silly grin. I developed a real good habit of learning the wrong “lesson” while simultaneously over-thinking everything. Thank you for your kindness, patience, and the wisdom to eventually move on… I hope I gave more than I took, but I kind of doubt that. However things ended, I tend to only remember the good things and greatly appreciate that I’ve had such caring people in my life. I hope you still have a knowing grin too. Thank you.