MY Thank You YEAR

How writing 365 notes of appreciation reconnected me to what’s important in my life

- Gina Hamadey

In January 2018, I was commuting from Brooklyn to New Jersey. I have two little kids and a busy consulting business, so a quiet train ride felt like a mini-vacation. Yet I found myself spending that precious time slack-jawed, scrolling through my social media feeds. One day, I put down my phone and started writing thank-you notes to people who had contributed to a fundraiser I had organized.

When I got off the train that day, I was in a noticeably better mood. The next day, I wrote more thank yous— and felt the same afterglow. When I finished writing the notes, I counted them up. There were 31—one for every day of the year so far. Something clicked. What if I kept it up?

I decided to write one thank-you note for every day of that year. I had no shortage of people I was grateful for. So I picked out a different theme for each month to keep on task. January was charity—and, thankfully, I had already completed that goal.

February would be dedicated to neighbours, I decided, and I thought of a dozen names right away. I remembered when the owners of our local bookstore let me and my five-year-old son, Henry, in before the store opened and offered to play his favourite soundtrack (Mary Poppins). I recalled when our 14-year old babysitter dropped off a bag of old board games for our kids to play.