SOARING TO UNPRECEDENTED HEIGHTS

This is just my seventh and undoubtedly final blog post of 2024. Not exactly a model of consistency! 

In my second entry of the year, titled “The Wave Keeps Cresting,” which was posted on March 1st, I made an offhand prediction in the first sentence of the fourth paragraph which proved to be erroneous. It stated: “ I harbor no illusion I will be writing 55 Letters of Gratitude this year, or even 45 or even 35.”

Wrong again, Sherlock.

The final count was just a shade below forty. Astonishing and unprecedented, because in the previous decade I have averaged about two dozen letters annually.

This year‘s letter recipients include more than half a dozen individuals or couples in my orbit who experienced tremendous loss – parents who lost daughters, and women who lost their husbands or partners. 

I wrote to a photographer AND a videographer. I reached out to a pair of newlyweds. I sent letters off to two college chums I haven’t laid eyes on in eons, (including one I visited in Thailand who has been absent from a face-to-face for more than forty years!) I produced a spate of “encore” letters also—to a favorite golf pro, to my in-laws, to some dear friends here in Park City, and to my delightful wife, among others. Going solely by this metric, it has been a banner year.

It seems HIGLY unlikely I will ever write this many letters in a single year going forward. 2024 was seemingly an outlier.

However I will hesitate from making predictions because the fact is, it’s not quite Christmas, and I have another letter mostly set and ready to go. But I’m going to date it for a day or two after the upcoming New Year . I want to get my 2025 output off to a solid start!