The week of Thanksgiving is the precious time we all carve out in our busy lives to stop everything and remind the people around us, who we love, we sometimes lost, or we can’t seem to lose, why we are so thankful for them. Without people hugging us hello, answering the phone when we need to hear a warm voice, or sitting across from us listening to the words that spill out of our mouths – life would be awkwardly lonely.
But the people, this year, who have made a dent in my heart, have been quite odd. They haven’t been my family members or my dearest friends. No. They have been strangers, psychics, and a man old enough to be my grandfather.
Here are my 4 wildcard people that i’m most thankful for this year:
1. My 86-year-old best friend (and business mentor), Ray. I sat in front of him and tried to tell him I wasn’t ready to write a book. I wasn’t smart enough, good enough, ready enough. He slammed his hands down on the oak desk and said to me:
“Are you wearing soft shoes?”
“No,” I replied, confused as always by Ray’s questions.
“Good. Give yourself a kick in the ass.”
2. A 75-year-old man sitting on a 3-hour flight next to me as we both made our way back to New York City. He tried to explain love to me, as If It was as simple as if it was something would could explain in ONLY 3-hours. But he did say this:
“Marry your best friend. Not the person who always makes you feel warm and mushy inside. No. Marry the person who is able to put up with you when most people would walk way, shut the door, or roll their eyes at your constant antics and annoying ideas.”
3. A husband and wife who found me hysterical crying in my scarf, while sitting on the sidewalk, in the heart of Times Square. I was crying over a broken heart and they were innocently just trying to take a picture of a sign my distressed self was blocking. The man with a Hawaiian shirt lent me his hand to pull me back onto my feet and the lady, with a giant black fanny pack, pulled out a piece of candy for me to nibble on. When they asked why I was ugly crying all by myself, and I told them – I told them everything – they said:
“Don’t you worry. There are more fish in the sea.”
And maybe where they are from there is a sea and inside that sea there are plenty of fish. But here in NYC, we don’t have that. We have mice and we have rats. So maybe what she was trying to say was there are more rats in the subway or mice in my apartment. But either way, I understood what she meant and I smiled. I smiled and I never looked back at that heartbreaker fish.
4. The Psychic I saw on Valentine’s Day who told me that my love life was doomed and that I may have a chance at finding love If I go to Disney Land. I’m grateful for her negative outlook on me finding my perfect match. Because of her, I went on 14 dates in the month of February (I go to extremes to prove people wrong). I didn’t meet anybody that month – but I did agree to go on date #15 in March and that turned out to be all kinds of good luck.

Ps. Join in on the MONDAY fun. Right here, right now.