24 Days - Forty Thank-You Notes Delivered to Your Screen

As the clock winds down on ‘This Blog’s Life,’ I’m finding myself with so much I want to say but so little time left to say it. I still have stories to tell. Still have memories to share and anecdotes to compile into a craftily-named entry. But today I think I’m going to stick with some simple thank-yous. To people. To places. I even thank an organ in this thing. Because unlike the Oscars, I can’t be played off, however like the Oscars, I could forget someone very important that I shouldn’t (I’m looking at YOU, Hilary Swank!) So, here goes… 

1. Thank you to Miss Cheryl who in kindergarten took me outside of the classroom to reprimand me for stealing Joey DiTrolio’s coloring sheet from the science fair because I had lost my own. It scared the shit out of me, and put me on a path of honesty that would stay with me for years to come.
2. Thank you to my brother Joe for telling the kid up the street that he would break his arms if he ever laid a hand on me again even though I was the one who started the fight.
3. Thanks to a girl named Jen that went to my high school for telling me that I was too self-centered in conversations. It made me more aware of asking questions of other people.
4. Thanks to the lady at the day spa for letting me know that I was overplucking my eyebrows in the middle. The bastards still haven’t grown back, though.
5. Thank you to the Irish bullies in seventh and eighth grade for beating me up and making fun of me on a daily basis. What you did empowered me to never get picked on once I got to high school. And I wasn’t. Oh, and fuck youz.
6. Thank you to my friend Denine who was the only person to help me out when I got jumped on the Septa bus by a multitude of kids from another school. I’ll never forget your bravery or kindness.
7. Thank you to my mother for instilling in me that work should never be looked at as a chore.
8. Thanks to Miss Votta who paid for my prom tickets when my family was about to get evicted from the low-income house that we rented. I’m thrilled I got to pay you back monetarily some years later, but I will never be able to pay you pack emotionally as long as I live.  
9. Thank you to the person who told me when I was eighteen that I really should be listening to The Cure and not that crap I had been listening to in high school.
10. Thanks Steve Singer for giving me my first job in the jewelry industry. I love it and have never looked back.
11. Thank you to my first husband who pretty much handed me the world’s best divorce. I hope we are friends for the rest of our lives.
12. Thanks to every young cashier at Publix for raising their eyebrows in surprise when they card me after scanning my bottle(s) of wine.
13. Thank you to those who helped make Georgia ‘home’ for me – a woman who is so Philly she practically poops cheesesteaks.
14. Thank you Ina, Courtney, Lauren, and Michelle for giving me a place in a place that I felt I’d forever be an outsider. No more eating lunch alone.
15. Thank you to the stripper who tipped me twenty bucks when she handed me her coat to check which would have only cost her two. It was 2003, and MAN, I needed that twenty.
16. Thank you to the black boys on Hancock Street who taught me how to pop and do a windmill on a piece of old linoleum, as well as to the black girls who taught me how to cornrow braid. Growing up in the projects wasn’t always as bad as it seemed.
17. Thank you, Hurricane Frances, for sending my husband and me up to Nashville in September of 2004 instead of our original destination of Orlando. It was there that we discovered a little Philly band called Marah. The rest is history.
18. Thank you to Tom, the man whose surname I’ll never know, for saving my son’s life on September 16, 2006.
19. Thank you to my mother-in-law for FOREVER being a person we can depend on.
20. Thank you, Catholicism, for continuing to guilt me into believing in something my brain thinks I shouldn’t. I don’t mind the guilt. I kind of like believing.
21. Thank you, Beatrice, for greeting me day in and day out with the biggest kisses and hugs any mother could ever want from a daughter. And for showing me exactly the hell I put my mother through.
22. Thanks to S.A. for doing what you did at a time that was just right. Things are so much better now and I owe it all to you.
23. Thanks to my best friend for being my rock and my shoulder and my ear and my confidant and my therapist and my pharmacist and my muse. I love you like a sister.
24. Thank you, Overbrook, for feeding me, schooling me, and welcoming me in the earliest years of my childhood life.  You will always be home to me. I am proud to say I’m from West Philly.
25. Thank you G.A.M.P. for teaching me my circle of fifths, the difference between adagio, legato, staccato, and allegro, and for just outright being the fucking BEST high school in the city of Philadelphia. OH GAMP SO EVER DEEEEEEAAAAR…
26. Thank you to my brother Steven for letting me use his apartment for “After Prom” in 1990. Sorry about all the cigarette butts. And the overwhelming smell of beer that hung around for weeks. The pot wasn’t mine, however. I swear.
27. Thank you to my four childhood friends for being who you are to me almost three decades later. May the bond between us never be bent or broken by anyone. Love brought us back together and trust will keep us there. SMABB.
28. Thank you to my brain for making fairly good decisions over the last four decades. My heart? Not so much.
29. Thanks to the city of Decatur for proving to me that as a society and yes, even in the South, we really can “all just get along.”
30. Thank you to the teachers who encouraged me, enriched me, and empowered me through thirteen years of school. I may not have made it to college, but you’re the reason I’m anything, and I truly believe that.
31. Thank you to everyone and anyone who tried to keep me down in one way or another. You’re also the reason I’m anything, and I also truly believe that.
32. Thank you Philadelphia Phillies, Philadelphia Flyers, and Atlanta Falcons. Screw you, Philadelphia Eagles.
33. Thank you to my son for always looking out for me, even when I was struggling on the last leg of our run. I love you I love you I love you to pieces.
34. Thanks to BlogHer.com for publishing some of my writings. You helped me believe in myself, and because of that I kept going.
35. Thank you to the grunge movement, indie rock, and eighties alternative music. Oh, and U2. Just because.
36. Thank you to my parents for never taking me anywhere on a plane; you’re the reason I barely keep my feet on the ground now.
37. Thank you to my cousin Big Steve for being there for me at my dance recitals among other times when most others weren’t. You are still an absolute gentleman to this day and I’m so happy to have you back in my life.
38. Thank you Google for just about everything I will ever need to know about everything. I don’t think I could write without you.
39. Thank you C.S. for reaching out to me and trying to reconnect after a long time of not being around one another. I hope we keep it going. I love you.
40. Thank you to my husband. I could go on and on about how wonderful he’s been, how understanding he can be, how beautiful, intelligent, and caring he is, but I’d rather just say that if there is an emotion other than outright love that I feel most for you, I think gratefulness sums it up perfectly. I am plainly and simply grateful for you. I am grateful for you, and I thank you for all that you are.