For the most part birthdays were always great growing up. Plenty of food. Plenty of attention. Plenty of cake. My eighteenth birthday was a page out of a dream with my date cooking me dinner at his place and singing me a song on his guitar for dessert. After that? Blech. The next note worthy birthday event would not occur for eight long years.

In 2009, on my birthday, I had some major life changes that occured. It was such a dark time and I felt as though I lost everyone and everything that I had worked with, for, and towards. In hindsight, that year (or so) was important. It was a year of grieving. Necessary grieving of old expectations, relationships, hopes, and promises.

Last year’s theme was ‘Think Pink’. I focused, and encouraged others to focus, on the ‘pink’ parts of life. Flirty, bright, passionate, feminine, lively, sexy, fun…We celebrated our pink with a two-part event with the first part being family night at the bowling alley and Saturday evening spent at a plush night spot in beautiful downtown Detroit.

My theme this year is ‘Leslie’s New Year’. I celebrated My New Year’s Eve at a steakhouse with a small group of family and friends. On my New Year’s Day I went to my cousin, aka The Hair Diva, and got the works. Later that night, I went on a date at a medium-high glitz velocity including Cuban cuisine and dancing at a Martini Bar just caliente to heat up the snowstorm.

Just as is the case with the start of the calendar year, My New Year is not a day but a year. See…I have always been a goal-oriented person and many of the accomplishments I have made in my life were motivated by a goal and fulfilled by hard work, perserverance, yadda yadda {you know the rest}. What struck me this past holiday season was, however, I am not in the same place, not even the same person who has made and succeeded at these resolutions. Over the past eight years, I have been in a constant state of transition and change, moving farther away from my foundation.

The start of my New Year marked the beginning of my year-long trek to rebuilding my foundation in my life as it is…not grounded in past or future circumstances…but where I am right now.

Today marks the beginning of something new. A new chapter. I am not even completely sure of all it entails. It is unwritten chapter. But, to the best of my ability, I will share it with you.