As years go, 2019 wasn’t entirely a bad one. But I wouldn’t necessarily say it was a good one either. Like any year, it had its ups and downs, celebrations and disappointments. We lived through a construction project, I had a milestone birthday and we toured colleges with our not-so-baby girl. We slide into 2020 knowing it’s going to be one filled with changes – change being the one constant you can count on in life. Having spent the last 18 years with my world revolving around being a mom, my every day is clearly about to undergo a vast shift so I’m not going to bother making any sort of sweeping declarations of what I’m going to do in 2020, beyond of course, promise you that I really am not coming back to run the orchestra poinsettia sale, so please, stop asking. Really.

I’ve spent a lot of time in my own head recently ruminating on turning 50 while facing the reality of the empty nest ticking down, trying to put all that into words to be shared. Christmas Eve I found myself looking around a roomful of friends and realized what I needed to find the words for was to thank and celebrate my tribe. I’m not just lucky to have one, I’m lucky that it is so big – it’s deep and wide, with members from so many parts of my life, scanning the variety of what it is I do and am. From my galpal brunches to my neighborhood mom friends, my college girlfriends, my girl scout mom crew, my cabana boys, my fairy godmothers and othermothers, our ‘cousins’ and other framily, all my group chats and everyone inbetween that we spend time with that help carry us through. For our tribe haven’t just gotten us through the last year or two years, they’ve carried us through for some time now.

It was the start of this past decade that I first realized how blessed we were to have our tribe, so it seems fitting that as we leave this one and enter a new decade, I stop to acknowledge what a huge chunk of my life these last 10 years has been due to them. I mean, seriously. The writing, the cooking classes – I wasn’t doing those things this time ten years ago. I know, they are such a natural fit everyone assumes I’ve been doing them all along. But I wasn’t. It was the encouragement of my friends combined with some downright nepotism on some of their parts that helped with the reinventions of myself this past decade.

And so, to all of you, I say, thank you. I am awe of those of you who chose to be in my orbit – and so grateful for you. You inspire me and lift me up. As I stand here having freshly entered a new decade of my life, entering a new decade on the calendar as well as a whole new chapter of parenting and life, I just want to say thanks for being around.