The First Day of Next Year

Special Thanksgiving Edition

I’m grateful for a rainy morning and grateful for another trip around the Sun. I’m grateful for Thanksgiving and time with my daughter. I’m grateful for a phone call from my far-flung son. I’m grateful to be sober today.

Originally, I wasn’t going to write this week. I had decided that on account of Friday being the day after Thanksgiving (which this year is also the day after my birthday) it might be a good day to take off, maybe mail in a best-of with a few links to the podcast. But here we are.¹

I blame the song of the week and a train ride for creating today’s special edition of Thanks for Letting Me Share. I’m headed to Boston to spend Thanksgiving with my lovely and imminently heir-producing daughter and her husband. I was riding down the elevator in my building, affixing the airpods for the walk to the subway, which, of course, includes a stop at the not-on-the-way, but always on the way coffee shop for the obligatory subway cortado.

I had closed Spotify, re-opened it and actually played a different playlist for a few seconds so that I’d get a good shuffle on the main playlist. Why the drama and rigamarole? Well, being as how it was the celebration of my annual pilgrimage around the Sun, this would be the first song of the next year. A fairly significant moment for me—what would the song be and what would it portend for this 63rd orbit. I was actually a little nervous and you already know that I think this is how the Universe communicates with me.

FM Radio, Prayer and Listening for the Universe

I hit the play button and actually felt my breath constrict in anticipation. And the first song of next year played and I laughed out loud in the elevator:

Hahahha. Oh, 2025, you have know idea what’s in store.

Is that perfect or what? You know what I think about what’s coming, how the Earth is moving under my feet, how this is my Caterpillar Year:

A Caterpillar Year

Even my special birthday horoscope augurs great and mysterious things in the offing. The advice is that things are about to happen and that I need to be ready because it’s going to happen fast!

This former Boy Scout is nothing but ready.

And that brings us to the second reason for this appearing in your inbox today: A long train ride. I fought through the crowds clustered for a very rainy edition of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade to make the train to Boston and once ensconced in the Quiet car on a delightful rainy Thanksgiving morning, my mind turned to, well, Thanksgiving. Not the kind with the turkey, but the kind that involves the actual giving of thanks.

The last time my birthday coincided with Thanksgiving was 2019. I was about 40 days sober and pretty much out of my head. While I wasn’t drinking, it felt like my life was unraveling. I was involved in what would charitably be called a catastrophic relationship; in fact, its demise in the Summer of 2020 was what set me on a collision course with my current life in New York.

How did I go from there to here? The short answer is gratitude. I started doing a daily gratitude list in November of 2020–at the behest of a sponsor. As my recipient list grew, I had the idea to put it on Twitter–where it remains to this day. Not to brag, but I think we are coming up on 1400 consecutive days of gratitude over there.

How did gratitude get me sober? Here read this:

How it Works: Gratitude

The better question, how did gratitude change my life? Finding ways to be grateful every single day taught me:

• The point is the learning

• The things that are supposed to happen generally do

• There is beauty in loss and sadness

• Happiness is a consequence of courage and authenticity

• There is literally beauty and love all around me every minute of every day, I just have to let myself see it, or better yet, feel it.

And then on this fantastically rainy day of thanks, while I’m happily encapsulated on a Boston-bound train, I started to be overwhelmed by just how much there is to be grateful for. I’ve learned the best thing to do when that overwhelming feeling strikes is to make a list. So here’s a list, presented in no particular order:

Things I’m Grateful For (November 2024 Edition)

I’m grateful for train rides on rainy days

I’m grateful it’s Thanksgiving

I’m grateful for five years of sobriety

I’m grateful for this newsletter

I’m grateful for my sponsees

I’m grateful for my brave, funny son

I’m grateful to be closing in on being a grandfather

I’m grateful for a new career and a chance to build something again

I’m grateful for a beautiful apartment

I’m grateful for my cocoon

I’m grateful for easy access to snacks in my neighborhood.

I’m grateful for my neighborhood.

I’m grateful for playing basketball in the park.

I’m grateful for the people who read this newsletter.

I’m even more grateful for the people who subscribe to this newsletter.

I’m grateful for an apartment filled with books and music

I’m grateful for the life I’ve built

I’m grateful for my talented and lovely daughter

I’m grateful my parents are happy, healthy and independent

I’m grateful for surprises

I’m grateful for cooking

I’m grateful for Saturday trips to the Farmers Market.

I’m grateful for the East River Ferry.

I’m grateful for the Big Book and the people who have sponsored me

I’m grateful for AA meetings and the people who attend

I’m grateful to be healthy

I’m grateful for coffee, every single day.

I’m grateful for dark mornings waiting for the sunrise

I’m grateful for old friends

I’m grateful for the peace and calm I feel every day

I’m grateful for yoga and meditation

I’m grateful to live in the most beautiful city

I’m grateful for Central Park.

I’m grateful for used record and book stores.

I’m grateful for all of the dogs.

I’m grateful for the secret coffee place.

I’m grateful for swagger on the subway.

I’m grateful for the Compleat Strategist on 33rd Street

I’m grateful for the library

I’m grateful for Academy Records.

I’m grateful for the way people have come into my life.

I’m grateful for all of the lessons I’ve been taught.

I’m grateful for the moments of quiet and being able to stand them now.

I’m grateful to love the moments of quiet now.

I’m grateful for the leaves in Autumn and walks in fresh fallen snow

I’m grateful for long walks with no purpose

I’m grateful for pirate-y bad-assery and swagger

I’m grateful for the pirate balcony.

I’m grateful for a swanky umbrella and the memory of a trip to Paris.

I’m grateful for everything that hurt

I’m grateful for feeling lost and getting lost

I’m grateful to have found the path and grateful for every day on it

I’m grateful for the view from my desk

I’m grateful for afternoons in Bryant Park drinking coffee

I’m grateful for not knowing what’s next

I’m grateful for mystery and surprise

I’m grateful for chances to see things differently

I’m grateful for accepting myself

I’m grateful for seeing that the only thing I could change was me

I’m grateful for the way the city looks on rainy days

I’m grateful for the museums and the chance to get lost in them on a regular basis

I’m grateful for the chance to write

I’m grateful to get to share my experience, strength and hope with others.

I’m grateful for the apple crumble I make after trips to the farmers market

I’m grateful for my kitchen

I’m grateful for pennies in the street and chance encounters

I’m grateful for building faith and never losing hope.

I’m grateful for not giving up.

I’m grateful for what I had to lose.

I’m grateful for my piano and starting to play again

I’m grateful for art and beauty

I’m grateful for Apple Jacks and Hostess Donut Gems

I’m grateful for my view of an island that could be named after me

I’m grateful for seeing that love is usually at the bottom of disappointment.

I’m grateful for rebirth, renewal and redemption.

I’m grateful for letting things be

I’m grateful for seeing what’s worth holding on to

I’m grateful for willingness and more chances to get things right

I’m grateful to realize most of the stories I tell about myself aren’t true

I’m grateful for chances to help other alcoholics

I’m grateful for sunny days, too

I’m grateful for the people who make me laugh

I’m grateful for the people who left love behind for me

I’m grateful for the people who showed me my own reflection

I’m grateful for Elvis Costello and the Cars

I’m grateful to sometimes see the purpose in things

I’m grateful for the ways things unfold, when I let them

I’m grateful for hard work and knowing that I can still do it

I’m grateful for my office in the sky

I’m grateful for hearing train whistles from a long ways away

I’m grateful for chances to make amends to the people I hurt

I’m grateful for finding the path meant for me

I’m grateful to be leading the life meant for me

I’m grateful for what happens when I let go of the things not meant for me

I’m grateful for fear and grief and mourning

I’m grateful for the hard days and what I can learn

I’m grateful for what the hard days teach

I’m grateful for sitting through the hard days

I’m grateful for the Pirate Balcony herb garden

I’m grateful for honey bees in the Lavender

I’m grateful for gratitude lists

I’m grateful for Moleskine notebooks

I’m grateful for inspiration and intuition

I’m grateful for taking risks and trying new things

I’m grateful for hints from the Universe

I’m grateful for Spotify playlists

I’m grateful for loving myself and seeing what I almost left behind

I’m grateful for all of the chances to get back up again

I’m grateful for letting the game come to me

I’m grateful for late-inning at-bats and the sound of a double off the wall

I’m grateful for the people who love me and fill my life with beauty and laughter

I’m grateful for nearly 1400 days of gratitude lists

I’m grateful for five years of sobriety

I’m grateful to be sober today.

There have been very dark days in my life. Today is not one of them. Sure, outside it’s gray and gloomy and the rain is falling. But that’s just the weather. My life is filled with light and love and peace and calm and more than I could ever have imagined or asked for. I’m on the way to be with people I love for my favorite holiday (and my birthday, to boot). In a few short weeks there will be a grandson for me to adore, spoil and corrupt. There is no question but that I’ve been blessed.

The greatest blessing: The capacity to see this beautiful world around me and find new things to be grateful for every single day.

Happy Thanksgiving.

1. I am taking tomorrow off. That’s why there is a special Thanksgiving Edition.