Never Say Good-Bye...

“Don't get too comfortable with who you are at any given time - you may miss the opportunity to become who you want to be.”

- Jon Bon Jovi

And tonight my little blades, after a drink for about 4 hours with two of my closest friends from 7th grade, Niambi and Shabaka, I am leaving you all with a JERSEY VIDEO. After all, I am in my hometown in the Garden State. P.s. I hadn't seen Shabaka since 8th grade!!!

And after a high school reunion, seeing a dear, new friend in a play, hanging with my Dad and stepmom, sleeping over at one of my best friend's houses and waking to D & D walks, seeing my childhood best friend tomorrow for ice cream in Princeton, and then hopping a train down to DC to spend the weekend with my two best friends and their little young family...

I am realizing that though we may move from our hometowns and follow our dreams, though we may lose touch and pull away from our families to establish ourselves in this world, we truly never say goodbye... Not to the people whom we have truly loved.

And thus, I leave you with some serious 80's Bon Jovi -- a time when I was little and living in my hometown in NJ, dreaming of the things I am now beginning to hold in my two hands -- best friends, big, big dreams, leaving my small town and making it big in the city and beyond that, the world...

But what I am realizing more than anything is that in order to truly make it -- to be a success and break glass ceilings and make our glorious mark on this world, me must take our stories with us. Our truth. And my hometown, my beloved, complicated family, my friends since nursery school, 7th grade, from up my block, from prep school, the kid I was... I love all of these things.

And as my dreams come closer and closer, I am more sure than ever that I shall never say goodbye... to who I was to become who I will be.

And on this note, I will never say good-bye to my little blades, near and far. And please remember, all of you, that success comes from truth -- having the courage to share our own stories, and so, may you all never say goodbye to what you have been, who you once were, to become who you are yet to be. Carry your stories with you, for these memories, these human beings, they are what make us yearn to come home, what make our lives rich, what put the "home" in hometown. And I for one DIG being home again.

I send you all Love... Always