2008

Piled on, one right on top of another, years themselves simply accumulate for adults. Significant moments happen in the midst of those years, but the years themselves pass before we've even had a chance to take stock in them. For a baby, however, one year can hold so many developmental firsts and changes: first solid food, first crawling, first pulling up to standing, first steps, first words. For a baby, one year is like a lifetime: they begin it in the womb, and end it moving toward becoming independently mobile.

I feel like 2008 has passed for me with the same huge developmental steps. This New Year's Eve, I am so far from where I was last New Year's Eve (even though, ironically, I'm currently less than a mile away), that 2007 NYE Kate wouldn't even recognize the Kate of today. I wonder if knowing my fate back then would have caused me to make different decisions. But of course even if I had, I would have missed out on so much - and there's something to be said about the bad times, too. I am stronger because of them, and to have skipped them would have skipped some good times too. I shouldn't regret it any more than a baby regrets learning to crawl. After all, we all have to make these developmental changes in order to...well...develop.

So Happy New Year, everyone. Here's to a 2009 that's so great that, looking back, the 2010 Kate looks back and just can't believe how much she's grown.