The Right Friend at the Right Time (Day 4 of Gratitude)

I had a dream last night about someone who at one time was among my very closest friends, and I can't help thinking that my subconscious thinks I owe a deep debt of gratitude to Rachel Kurlantzick. Rachel came into my life at the precise right moment. There are those who say this happens often, that you get what you need or what you can handle. Religious people attribute this to God. I don't know what I believe, but I know that Rachel came along during a time in my life when I needed her.

I was a senior in college and was coping with heartbreak. Seeking comfort, I moved back into the house I had lived in during my sophomore and junior years, and a sophomore lived next door. Rachel was compassionate and optimistic and silly—a combination that turned out to be perfect. Perhaps because she hadn't witnessed any of the lead-up in real-time, she was able to listen deeply without judgment and offer advice in a way that resonated. Rachel and I spent hours laying on each other's beds, wasting time in the library, eating snacks and cereal and ice cream... in short, doing what everyone should do in college. Rachel decorated my bedroom on my 22nd birthday.

We remained close for years after that. I spent a week with her family on Cape Cod one summer and went up to Connecticut for her college graduation party when she graduated two years later. And then she moved down to Washington just 3 blocks from my apartment, and our friendship deepened. We spent the afternoon of 9/11 on her rooftop, staring out in dismay at the smoke billowing from the Pentagon. When I was sick and Instacart did not exist, my mom called Rachel and asked her to bring me chicken noodle soup. She stood next to me at my wedding and toasted the next stage in my life.

But that next stage didn't offer the kind of space that my and Rachel's relationship consumed. Or at least that's what I tell myself, because Rachel and I slowly lost touch and our friendship waned. In these days of social media, when we all stay "friends" with people who were never even actually friends, Rachel—one of my very closest friends at one time—are not even "friends" today.

That doesn't make her any less important in my life. Rachel taught me resilience at a time that I desperately needed it, and I owe her a great deal of thanks for getting me through a rough spot and helping me begin my life in Washington.

Gratitude for Friendship (Day 3 of Gratitude)

One of the greatest surprises in life is who you make a connection with and how and why that connection remains. In 7th grade, when I started at Cooper Jr. High School I met Missy Yacktman. Our elementary schools had merged and Missy and I found ourselves in many of the same classes during our first year of lockers and homerooms and dances. I have to be honest, I don't remember the first day we met or anything so dramatic. One of my first memories of Missy is sitting in the music room with our dads, who it turned out were in the same business and so knew of each other. Our families were considering sending on a study abroad trip to Russia that I think happened over spring break (it was 1990, the Soviet Union was in the midst of breaking up, and both of our families decided it wasn't the right time to go. Missy would spend quite a bit of time there 15 years later. I still haven't been).

Throughout junior high and high school, we shared a very close friendship. We passed notes and shared notebooks that we passed back and forth. We commiserated over teachers, shared stories and heartbreak about crushes and boyfriends. We spent hours and hours after school sitting at one of our houses playing video games. Missy has a large family, and I have vivid memories of playing with her little brothers, getting advice from her older sister on how to deal with mean girls, eating fried shrimp for dinner with her family, and coming over during Christmas to watch while all the kids created gingerbread houses. The day we graduated from junior high, her older brother took us to Bino's Pizzeria in his convertible. These are the kinds of seemingly meaningless moments, the nooks and crannies of life where romances bloom and friendships are sealed. Missy – and her family – always channeled love and caring.

Like most friendships formed at age 13, ours has expanded and contracted over the years. Our paths diverged during college but my senior year she visited over my birthday, at the very end of the school year, reminding me by way of explanation that she had promised to come visit while I was there. After that, we kept in touch but it was halfhearted. Our lives were so different, our paths so divergent. Still, as we pursued our dreams in different arenas and on opposite coasts, it was nice to know I always had someone to call, someone who had known me in the 7th grade. And somehow we both felt this way. Unlike so many friendships that simply wane as years pass, ours seemed to sit patiently on the back burner, waiting.

But around 2007/08, circumstances brought us back together. Missy had moved east, and we finally found ourselves back in the same domain. Within a year both of us were pregnant and our boys would be born within a few months of each other. Now one of my clearest memories is visiting New York when my son was just 6 weeks old, and seeing our boys discover one another and seal a second generation of friendship.

Missy is one of those people who is just inspiring to be around. When Mark first met her, he said she lights up a room. She is a natural dancer and yoga expert but without the cloying airs that often come with that. She so embodies a sense of positivity that sometimes you wonder if she's wearing a halo – but just until she swears and you realize she's human, and breathe a sigh of relief. Today when I need someone to listen (actually listen) to whatever is gnawing at me, to set me straight but a keen understanding of who I was 25 years ago and how that has shaped me, there is only one person I call.

Thank you, Mis, for your kindness and friendship and for all the light you, and your family, bring to my life.

The Small Decisions We Make (Day 2 of Gratitude)

As I mentioned, I was inspired to do this by a guy I went to college with, who is sharing his posts of gratitude on Facebook. And what's interesting about that is he's writing about being grateful for certain people, who he links in the app, and it's got this entire separate component of publicly thanking people who might not know they had an impact on your life. Which I love.

I have been thinking a lot about this – as I consider where to post my own gratitude, as I wonder who would make my list and whether I would start with low-hanging fruit like my husband, parents, best friend, or if the point is the randomness, of shining a light on those hidden roses who don't even know they mattered to you. Digging deep to recall those moments that someone touched you, whether accidentally or deliberately, and made a difference in your life.

And yet... While I am confident I have had these moments, I can't begin to imagine how I would find 365 of them the way Nate is doing. And somehow, despite not knowing most of the people he is posting about, I am riveted by his writing, which is powerful and moving and insightful and just so telling about the kind of person he is. It makes me sad I didn't know him better in college.

After pondering, I decided that Facebook is just too public for me. While there are benefits to shining that spotlight, I prefer to write in (relative) anonymity here on the blog, which doesn't have a following. Maybe some of these posts will be reposted, who knows.

Today I am grateful for the NBC bureau chief in DC in 1999. Whose name I can't even recall, but hopefully it will come to me. Brady... Something. Brady Daniels (thank you Google). Who answered the phone when a senior in college called his direct line and actually spoke to me. I can picture myself in my room at college, calling through a spreadsheet of people I had sent resumes to. It was mid-morning and I had included a line in all of my cover letters that said "I will call you" – as the career counselors suggested. So I felt like I had to do it. And I called NBC and asked for Brady, and he answered. So I introduced myself and said I was coming down to Washington, and he offered to meet with me. It was the start of my entire career. I'm sure I would have found another way into TV, but this was the direct route. When I met him, he introduced me to the head of MSNBC at the time (she may have had another title), who lured me away from CNN after I had been there for 6 months, to work with Andrea Mitchell. Who knows how I would have navigated in, had Brady not answered that call. Each of these small moments in one's history loom large in her own personal narrative.

But what's amazing is that this was a nothing decision for him. He picked up the phone and chose to speak with me. How often do we make that decision, rather than letting it go to voicemail if we don't recognize the phone number, then forgetting (or choosing not) to return the call to the bold young person who leaves a message? I'm quite certain that as NBC's bureau chief for what is the second largest market, he was a busy guy. But he still made time for an optimistic young up-and-comer – a decision we can all learn from.

It's Certainly Been a Long Trip! (Day 1 of Gratitude)

So I started this blog more than 10 years ago, which is sort of unbelievable. And in that time, so much has changed. I've read in the past – I think in an Oliver Sacks column (incidentally when I went back to find this I was wrong – the Oliver Sacks was a different, but related column) – that when they ask people whether they think they've learned more in their past decade of life or will learn more in the next decade, people nearly universally say they've learned more in the previous decade. Or maybe it's not learn but experience. Anyway, people always think the previous decade has been more substantive or definitive. But maybe they're not right. Maybe we're not right. Maybe if we do it well, each subsequent decade is better.

So we embark on a new decade of the blog – and (soon) the final year of my own personal next decade. And as I do so, I am trying to figure out what comes next. When I started this blog, I was writing about restaurants and new discoveries in my urban dwelling. And now I am the suburbanite I so disdainfully referred to, with a life that, for a variety of reasons, makes it impossible to be trying every new restaurant and bar. I'm always surprised to find that someplace I finally make it to has actually been around for years. Yesterday we drove past a Pret a Manger that had opened on the corner of 17th and K Streets, and I said, "Oh look, a new Pret!" Mark said it had been there for 6 years. (Turns out it has been there for 3 – but still!)

But I wanted to start today a practice of posting about gratitude. A guy I went to college with who is a Facebook friend has been doing it this year, and I felt really moved by the idea. If you are truly thinking each day about something you are grateful for, it has to have a larger impact – it has to make you grateful, right? Let's try it.

Today I am grateful for an innate ability to write. Perhaps it was cultivated at an early age, or perhaps it is truly an innate gift bestowed upon me by those ancestors who passed on their genes. I'm not sure where it came from, but it has gotten me far. I don't have nearly the same gift of speaking or expressing myself aurally as I do when writing, and thankfully that has not been as much of a detriment as it may have been. And it's even better when I have time to reflect on my writing, and edit it, and think through the logic flow so that it can be tighter and more persuasive. But it's a gift – no other word for it – to be able to document the thoughts in your brain so thoroughly as to share them with others.

Or just to share them with yourself. I've discovered over the years that writing helps me analyze what is in my head. It's as if by documenting them, I can see them for the first time. This is true even when it comes to making lists so I remember what I want or need to accomplish in a day. By writing it out, it becomes more real. Likewise, by writing how I feel, I become more attuned to those feelings. I wish I had the discipline to find more time to write and to explore that giant melee of thought swirling around in my head. Perhaps this is the start of that.