Seriously, how did 2009 happen?

It's crazy how quickly time passes. It seems like only yesterday we were celebrating the fact that the entire world made it through Y2K with all our ATM cards and Computers still in tact. Thank god for the abundance of duct tape and plastic window coverings.

But that was an astonishing 9 years ago. As we enter this final year of Single-digit hood, I find myself looking back. This was a weird year. A year that I never dreamed of living...or experiencing.

Sometimes life throws you a curve ball and you hit a home run...Sometimes that damn ball just hits you right in the face.

I've had a little bit of both this year.

I rang it in (as usual) in Seattle. Gobbling up my sauerkraut and potatoes, the beginning of a year always brings a sense of refreshing newness.

A chance to get it right...again.

This year brought on a lot of changes...just like every year before it. But this one took a toll on me. It was an unsettling year, both private and professionally. One that challenged me, that made me look at the future though unstable glasses. One that made me harder, more critiquing, more scrutinizing.

It was also one that made me laugh uncontrollably, one that pushed me to grow, one that made me realize strengths and weaknesses, in myself, in the world, in other people. It allowed me to see the fear of wrong decisions, the power of making the right ones. The ability to change circumstances, the grief of loss, the loneliness of a crowded room and the joy of unopened adventures.

I expect 2009 to be just as rewarding.


I'm sitting in my favorite Island Starbucks, and it's super busy. But I finally got a table and set my laptop up. I'm here on a mission: To Complete the list of my yearly goals. Usually I just add my goals to the back of a journal I started years ago, but I left that in Seattle. So I had to go all technical and create a word doc.

This list turned out to be two pages of Goal Making Extraviganzia.

We'll see how it goes.

But for now, a virtual toast...Here's to you 2008 and all you're glory. And to 2009, may you be as fruitfully fun.

P.S: It seems that everyone has their own top ten lists---lists of the best, lists of the worst, lists of the yearly lists even.

I made a list of defining moments. In my head. It's a good list...too bad you all aren't in there to experience it.