To Those I've Ignored

This post originally appeared on my Facebook page. Since not everyone sees that page, I wanted to share it here for all to see. 

Friends, I want to take a minute to be very serious here. Actual serious, not sarcasm or snark. Not even Cubs ranting.

I try to share the best of my world, things I find interesting, and a laugh or two on Facebook. And in the past, I've tried to wish those I know or are somehow connected with a happy birthday in as special way as I can. I hope it makes you happy, I know I enjoyed looking for a way to celebrate you on YOUR day.

I've failed to do that last part for the last year or so. I've had a horribly difficult year, with a startup company I poured my heart and soul into betraying its employees, going out of business, and leaving really good people in emotional and financial shambles. It's been a distraction to say the least, and I haven't done a good job in helping those whose connection and friendship I appreciate celebrate their special day, let alone maintain normal contact. 

As the High Holy Days leave their lessons behind and my own birthday approaches, I look back on the last year and apologize to those I've overlooked or just plain ignored. That was wrong and selfish, no matter what was going on in my life.

Borrowing from C. S. Lewis, “There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.” I ask you to accept my most sincere apologies and join me in trying to experience a positive end to this year as well as a great year ahead. The fog is lifting and I'm hoping to put the past and the damage it caused behind and return to a better place in my new natal year. Hopefully, you'll still want to join me on that journey.

Farewell To The Past, High Hopes For The Future

As I sit looking at the clock and the under twelve hours left in 2012, I'm struck at how much this has been a year of change for me, and just about everyone around me.  While change can be daunting, frightening, and unnerving, I welcome and embrace it and am very happy about the changes I've experienced in the last year.

It would be presumptuous and egotistical to go over every event of the year that's about to end.  Some of those recollections would take me to a very dark place, and others of them will only make me seem like a braggart.  Suffice it to say that I started the year unemployed, stayed that way for longer than I ever have, and was blessed with a truly incredible job opportunity in June.  I have a great feeling of professional satisfaction, inner peace, and much less stress than I have had in a very long time, and for all of that I am grateful.

I'm also grateful for my friends, the few dozen people who I can honestly call my REAL friends.  Those who have supported, encouraged, and comforted me in the bad times and celebrated with me in the good times.  I've learned who my true friends are and gained new respect for the value of friendship.  I can't begin to name all of these "Real Friends" individually, but I do hope you are reading this and you know who you are.  You've been my invaluable support network, seen me through some of the lowest points in my life, and given me strength to go on.   For that, I think you with every fiber of my being.  

I'm grateful for the opportunities that lie ahead.  Working with John Tesh in the new world of content creation and social media is perhaps the most exciting and challenging job I've had.  Leaving the radio industry after 37 years was difficult in some ways, but incredibly easy as I look at the future of content and media and see the changes in the business I've loved for as long as I can remember.  Being able to continue to raise my family in St. Louis is a blessing, and I don't know of a better place for my family to flourish.

For the first New Year's Eve in a very long time, I can honestly say that life is good.  I'll be sad for a moment at Midnight when Dick Clark isn't there to bring in another year, but I'll be happy, excited, and invigorated as I spend that moment with the people I love and think about the amazing things that await me and those who are important to me in 2013.

As the New Year approaches, I leave you with my very best wishes for a healthy, happy, prosperous 2013 and with these words:

A happy New Year! Grant that I 

May bring no tear to any eye

When this New Year in time shall end

Let it be said I've played the friend,

Have lived and loved and labored here,

And made of it a happy year.

~Edgar Guest