Notes from the Field: The countdown is on...

"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time."

- T.S. Eliot

 

As 2011 came to a close, I made a promise to myself that 2012 would be better. It was going to be my "Champagne Year," twelve months marked by growth, success and love to outdo the tough ones I had just been through. 2012 delivered.

It was a year of travel, on helicopters, in cars and on every train-line in the Northeast. It was a year of romance. New love and lost love, friend love, baby love and dozens of great Manhattan date stories. It was a year of joy. A year of wild Tuesday nights, 2AM skinny dipping, far too much champagne and a lot of best/worst decisions made. And most of all, it was a year of hope. A year of seeing hope in even the bleakest situations, finding hope in the simplest wonders of humanity and acknowledging how having even the littlest amount of faith can change the chemical reaction between your body and the world.

Sitting here on the last day of this year, I can't help but reflect on how just the smallest moments, like meeting a person or changing your view of a situation, can change your life forever. I'm amazed at how virtues like patience and acceptance can completely change the impact of experience in your life. And most of all, I marvel at how allowing yourself to explore people and places for the sake of exploring - with nothing to lose, except maybe yourself for a bit if you're lucky - can bring you back to what you knew all along about yourself.

Tonight I'll celebrate with a few of my dearest, a lot of bubbles and good vanilla cupcakes with gold painted champagne buttercream. 2012 may be coming to a close, but as we know, every end is in fact another good opportunity to begin. And so I raise a toast to the beauty and good fortune that this year has brought me, and look forward to much much more champagne in 2013.