The Biggest Baby Step I've Ever Taken

Ever since I've been living at home after college in Glen Head, Long Island (or as it has lovingly come to be known as Glen Dead) I have been comfortable in knowing that my life would be a very simple series of baby steps leading up to something greater. For the past two years it seems as if that was exactly the case, and now I've taken a running leap off the staircase. Thankfully, instead of landing on my face and chipping a tooth or worse, I've landed in Los Angeles and am about to sign a lease for an apartment in North Hollywood.

Almost as soon as the ball dropped and the calendar turned from December 31, 2009 to January 1, 2010 a strange new feeling came over me. It was a feeling that made me smile, something new and rare as far as waves of unexpected emotion go. Over the following days in early January I found that this feeling was not just limited to myself. Close friends of mine were also feeling this seemingly inexplicable emotion and through some conversation it came out that the feeling was more a sense of something big on the horizon, and in the past 9 months it became even more evident that this is exactly what was happening.

Whether it was new jobs, promotions, moving out, starting college or just the most basic life changes (i.e. cutting your hair for the first time in 3 years), more and more of my friends seem to be experiencing these new positive changes in their lives and I could not be happier for all of them, no matter in what form they manifest themselves. This also started to bring me to the realization that as I was preparing to move from NY to LA I was very busy and didn't get a chance to see all of my friends before I left. I'm not a fan of goodbyes and I didn't make the last time I saw my friends about that. Because in reality I'm only a phone call away from those that I care about, plus it will only be a few months before I see the Atlantic again. And when I really started to think about the people that I wasn't able to hang out with, it only made me realize even more how blessed my life on Long Island has been.

It was probably somewhere in Pennsylvania that I almost brought myself to tears while driving and thinking about these people and how much a part of my life they all are. And for that there is no goodbye fitting enough. To actually say goodbye would be to dismiss something that is so deeply embedded in my being and whom I have grown to be. It would be the biggest lie ever to try to convince myself of. Instead of goodbyes I tried to make the last time I saw these people about all the good times we've shared and will always carry with me. If I didn't say it then, I would like to say now (without being too cliche); thank you, all, for the good times and the bad, the sweet and the sour, if you will.

I was especially thinking of you all while staring out across this...