July 22 – U

363/365 – people to thank who have had an impact on me.  Wow, only 3 more gratitude posts left including this one!!  When I started this journey a year ago, I was a little nervous as to if I would have 365 people to thank.  I didn’t want it to come down to posts such as thanking my mailman for the flyers he delivers in that they were the ones that led me on to some awesome deal!! ; )  Early on in these posts, I started hearing from friends that so and so had made “the list”.  I didn’t understand what that was until I was told that it was my “gratitude list”.  That put some pressure on me to say the least as there was now a “list”.  I didn’t want it to be a list and I didn’t want it to be some type of contest.  Then I heard that some people mentioned they were in the 80s and others were in the 200s!  I do have to make it clear that I haven’t had an order as to who I thank and thus whatever number gratitude post it was has no relation to ranking.  Most posts are the night before or a couple of days before.  Yes, I saved my dad for his birthday as I did with my children for theirs, my mom was first because well she is my mom but save for them and the final two gratitude posts, no one had a day or a number.  The list by the end of Sunday is far from complete.  I could thank another 365 people who got me to where I am today and this is what today’s gratitude post is about – to all of the people I didn’t name and there are hundreds of you that have impacted me!  So many former students, co-workers past and present, family members, inlaws, bosses, professors, fellow students, random strangers, neighbours past and present, friends, backhanded gratitudees (bullies and the like), service providers, celebrities etc, etc – just so many people who have made me who I am and to all of you un-named in this past year, you are part of this gratitude journey just because you were not personally mentioned here doesn’t mean you weren’t recognized by me.  To all the new people that will come in to my life, thanking you in advance as some of you will change and influence me in new ways.  Thank you to all of you who came along with me on this 365 day journey as well.  Your encouragement and support has gotten me to this end point.

January 11 – the atypical Bowie post

171/365 – people to thank who have had an impact on me. I am not jumping on the David Bowie bandwagon as I can not say that I was influenced by his music. I got into his songs in the 80s with Let’s Dance and China Girl and only discovered classics such as Golden Years well after the fact. However, I was inspired by David Bowie’s sense of style and versatility – Women have their style icons but guys like me really don’t – especially guys like me who change their look so often and that was one thing David Bowie did. If you know me in person – especially after my awkward teen years – you know that I change my look so frequently that most people can’t keep track of it – I’ve had red hair and blonde hair (for 15 years!!) and blue hair, I’ve rocked all sorts of facial hair, experimented with contacts and glasses, played around with asynchronous, man-bunned, crazy curled, short cropped, shaved down hair. My clothes – don’t even begin to get me started. But each and every phase, it was David Bowie who made me feel “normal” – here was a guy who just kept on reinventing himself. A very cool guy who was fashionable before it was fashionable to be so. A guy who just epitomized coolness to me. A guy who was older by two decades but didn’t let his age at any given time define him Yes, I may not have been into your musical artistry but you inspired me with your visual artistry. In your honour, I’m gonna keep on reinventing and rocking my look well into my Golden Years!