Two years ago, I doubt I could have imagined what my life would look like now.

Six months ago, I never could have envisioned the happiness that has been filling my soul with every sunrise, every smile.

Life has changed dramatically in just a short amount of time, and as fond of reflection as I am, I am all the more aware of just how much I’ve changed along with it.  During the winter months, I faced some of the darkest, most emotional moments I’d ever experienced. But, upon looking back, I’ve learned that light casts away the dark, good replaces the bad, and life is constantly moving forward (I’m pretty sure this is one of the laws of the Universe, right?).

Once upon a time, I mentioned that I wanted this year to be an awakening for me. I’d spent two years healing from five consecutive, permanent losses, while also coping with a loss of self-worth and questioning my place in the world. It had been an incredible journey — one, I’ve realized, is still only beginning.

A huge personal change is happening in my life right now –  a positive change – and I’ve never felt more excitement or anticipation. One of my many dreams is coming true, step by step, day by day. I’m not quite ready to divulge it to the masses quite yet, as it’s still a bit up in the air, but we’re moving forward, and when the time comes, I promise I will be excited to share it with all of you.

In the meantime, this real-life situation has been occupying my mind and leaving little room for any contemplative writing. Oh, I still have a thousand what ifs racing through there and some more character flaws to dissect and a dozen more questions to ask of the Universe…But for now, just a simple “Thanks, Universe…Looks like all those tootsie rolls are paying off” will have to do.

The blog may have been a bit more silent than usual, but I hope that you’ll hang in there with me. In the meantime, I want to hear from you! Summer plans, life changes, stories about your dog…I want to hear all about the important happenings in your life.

Today, I hope you’ll tell me your story.

What’s the name of the game?
Does it mean anything to you?
ABBA, “What’s The Name of the Game”

I’ve always had faith in social media and the communities that are built from it because it has always been about making the world a little smaller and bringing people together through shared interests, locations, and values. It was always about the connections for me. It was always about understanding another human being, about not feeling so alone in a world that, in all reality, though my optimistic self likes to ignore this part of it, can be a bit cold and dismal and separated. It was always about finding friends whom I may have otherwise never have known, bridging the distance and allowing for real connections based on who we are, not only what we do.

Only, that landscape has changed.

What was once a virtual front porch, a get-to-know-you coffee shop, that meet-and-greet cocktail party has turned into a playground where there are only so many swings. Numbers rule and competition to be the most/best/first weakens the importance of those solid connections. Your title becomes your defining characteristic and your rating measures your self-worth.

But we are more than a title. And we are more than a number.

The great thing about social media is that it helps you understand the complexity of people — a defining characteristic of what it means to be human. Because of our experiences, memories, likes and dislikes, values and beliefs, we have layers and depth beyond what is ever originally perceived. Social media peels back those layers one at a time, over time. We have compassion and intelligence; we have the ability to debate and share our story, hold fast to our values, conjure strength and provide support. We are able to constantly understand and wonder and question and discover. We have the ability to change and grow and transform our lives in an instant. Tell me, what metric creates a rating for that?

It’s so easy to get caught up in it all, to want to be on that virtual kickball team. But the thing about social media is that kickball is the wrong game. Because in social media, no one is without a team, a place.

A community is what you make of it — it can be strong and positive or overwhelming and unbalanced. And truthfully, lately, I’ve found myself on that latter end of that spectrum, wondering what had so changed. The answer was simple — I had as I scrambled to play catch-up, forgetting what I believed, forgetting what was so important to me and what I valued:

Being able to connect with others on that intimate level, finding people that we can learn from, so that we can grow with, not out of.

Like that landscape, a community can change as well.

Maybe it’s all up to you to figure out what you want yours to look like.

Last year — exactly last year — my mom called me early in the morning, her tone upbeat and full of cheer.

“Your birthday’s tomorrow!” she sang into the phone. Wasn’t I excited?

“Yeah,” I had replied.

Then I burst into tears.

I cried a lot last year. A LOT. It was a year of turmoil and change, marked by strong emotion, hindered by fear.

But through those tears emerged an acceptance. And from that acceptance came an understanding. And from that understanding grew a strength I never realized was possible.

Last year, I vowed that things would change — I would start over, start fresh. As I celebrated my birthday, I found a subtle transformation was occurring, and as the year passed and more changes took place, I found how much I was changing, too.

This year, as I celebrate my birthday, I’m also celebrating what this past year has brought me: adventure in the form of a dream come true, opportunities in the form of a passion revisited, a rediscovery of who I am as a twenty-something, as an adult, as a person.

It has brought me a greater appreciation for everything I have in my life.

This year brought me you.

Yes, each and every one of you who have been along for this crazy ride, supported and encouraged, offered insight and perspectives, sharing a part of yourselves in the process.

You’ve made me smile, you’ve made me laugh, you’ve pulled me out of dark moments and helped me look at situations from a fresh angle. You’ve helped me realize that life is about appreciating the little moments and celebrating our small successes, our greatest joys.

So tomorrow as I celebrate my birthday, I’ll also be celebrating you.

As my way of giving back to those who have been on this journey with me, I’m offering a giveaway for a (very small) prize pack.

I’ve realized over this past year the power of positive thinking and just how true it is that thoughts become things. On Twitter, I hold conversations with the Universe as a way to find some sense of understanding, as a way of learning to listen to and trust myself. Now’s your chance to recount your own journey, no matter in what phase of it you may be, and talk back to the Universe…


This giveaway contains a beautiful journal from TUT for your own “Notes to the Universe,” a mix of the music that titles each blog post on this site, and a pack of tootsie rolls (I hear they make the perfect bribes).







How To Enter: Post a comment below telling us what you’re celebrating this day/month/year with your name and valid email address in the appropriate fields (email address not disclosed). Tomorrow, the recipient will be selected at random and posted here, so keep checking back!

It has been a long road, but one that I can, perhaps for the first time, see a bit more clearly. It’s one I’m glad to be traveling.

And I’m glad to be traveling it with you.

Celebrate every moment, because every moment matters.

And a very heartfelt thank you, once again, to each and every one of you for sharing your stories, but, even more, for your friendship.

It’s been a bit over a year since this blog first debuted — a year of ups and downs, highs and lows, tears and laughter. I have changed, I have grown, I have learned. Along the way, I’ve met some incredible people who are traveling this leg of the journey with me — as other young professionals, as other twenty-somethings.

I’ve said before that I believe things are connected — I believe that there are events in your life that make other events possible. I once likened it to a game of connect the dots, but I think that there is more than one puzzle here, all of it connecting to form a much larger picture. So maybe it’s more like a quilt, with each thread forming a patch, and each patch making up the whole of the quilt.

Over the past year, I’ve followed a lot of threads. Some I thought were wrong and I wanted to go back and take out the stitching, to completely redo it. But even mistakes can be beautiful, I’ve come to understand; mistakes mean that you have the chance to learn, grow, and meet people who might have otherwise passed your way, unnoticed…

When I resigned from my job in communications and decided to work as a temporary employee until I found another job, I didn’t expect the places it would lead me. The stress of the job hunt, the desire to express myself and rediscover a passion (and myself), led to the creation of this blog as an outlet. And this blog led to a community of bloggers on Brazen Careerist.

That network on Brazen Careerist led to a community where I could share my own experiences and learn from others, valuing their perspectives, their insights, and even their friendship. It connected me with other young professionals and career strategists who showed me the importance of managing my own career; it was a blend of ideas coming from all angles. It was more than a place to explain your past experience, more than a place to paste your resume and look for a job — it was a place for community and conversation, learning and debate as you began to build your own career and showcase your potential.

Brazen Careerist has expanded upon these ideas, along with the foundation of community, with the launch of their new site. The site implements groups that furthers connections and encourages discussion based on interests and locations, while profiles illustrate your potential by highlighting your ideas and experience. The new homepage features the “Fan Feed,” similar to other social networking sites, which streams ideas and blog posts from other members you choose to follow — your chosen community — and if you’re looking to meet new bloggers and expand those connections, the Featured Posts section is still available on the sidebar.

So many of my own recent threads are all inter-connected, making up the whole of the past two years and experiences I once may have only dreamed of, culminating to bring me to where I am now, all linking back to the starting point of the blog and the people that Brazen Careerist has brought into my life. For me, it goes beyond readers, beyond the blog. It’s a community of professionals that has the ability to turn personal and become such a positive force. Like a neighborhood where people with similar goals but a wide spectrum of interests step onto their porch and share bits of wisdom gained from experience, pieces of their lives that they’re open enough to share so that others may learn and grow as well.

My threads have led me here, making up this community patch in the quilt that might represent my life. Where have your threads led you?

Social media and the online world is a funny, sometimes even fickle thing. People whom you’ve considered acquaintances, dared to deem friends, and a community you believed to be supportive and encouraging can all be uprooted in a moment. If you let it.

I’m a huge advocate for social media because I’ve witnessed its benefits and successes firsthand. By laying the foundation for a strong community, social media builds upon conversation and connections to make the world seem smaller, to share news and stories, to report on successes and failures so that we can all feel that familiar pride or sympathy, but most importantly, so we can learn.

I always thought of social media as a relatively safe place — the blog was a platform for personal growth while gaining new perspectives and valued insight; Facebook was a way to connect and reconnect; and Twitter…Twitter is somewhat of a magical world wherein you can converse, debate, share information, share a part of yourself. Twitter is the tie that binds those spread across various locales together, connecting us with another human being and deepening that bond. Some may say it’s superficial, and taking a look at the trending topics and the communities that some choose to build, that point is certainly valid. But these platforms are always what you make of them, and I have seen extraordinary connections being made as we peel back layer after layer and get to know each other as neighbors, as world-wide colleagues, as potential friends.

With social media, specifically Twitter as that platform, I have set that foundation and have subsequently built and become a part of such a strong community, filled with good, genuine, and generous people, whom I am honored to have met when it otherwise may not have been possible, many of whom have become real-life friends. I’m proud of this community, this network, because of those who work hard to make it worthwhile, engaging in conversation and valuable debate that offer perspectives and insight, that allow you to change and grow and become an overall better person.

However.

Unfortunately, there are some who willingly take advantage of that, who infiltrate the community and poison the good, perhaps only because they are feeling vindictive and calculating and maybe even unreasonably, unnecessarily threatened. Perhaps they truly, innocently misunderstand, but more often than not, as I’ve recently learned, there are those who wish to do more harm than good for no perceivable reason other than the fact that they are petty and callous. Yes, there are some people in this world who would rather remain seated behind the cloaked safety of the internet and place judgment on others, make faulty assumptions, and wreak upset on a life rather than actively communicate concern, engage in discussion, and connect with or get to know the person behind the name.

I’ve been told before that I can be too trusting of people, too naive. I completely agree. It’s almost to a fault. I like to believe that people are generally good, that they have given the world a reason to have faith in them and that they will prove the world right. I’ve recently been proven wrong, and through trusting blindly I have been affected and am deeply disappointed and saddened, if not a bit unclear and confused by the motivations behind the actions.

And yet, even still, I have found that one person cannot shake my belief in people, and it certainly cannot shake my belief in myself. If anything, it is making me stronger, and them seem a little weaker.

I believe in social media and I advocate for it every chance I get. It is a strong community like any other, where @names are house numbers and @replies are the doorbells, introducing potential friends and welcoming conversation and connections. My faith in this platform and my belief in this community is stronger than ever. As such, my faith and belief in myself remains unwavering.

Can you say the same?