2010...

I really love those New Year's Eve year in review things. They always make me well up.

Here is my top ten of 2010:

* Two years of marriage: successful, blissful, lucky as hell.

* My New York debut at Merkin Hall: if you don't count my hundreds of millions of auditions. Thank god this was a paying gig!

* Seeing my mother happy in a relationship.

* My first and last Met National Council Auditions...

* The first full year I have ever been able to say that I really trust my voice, technique, and my point of view as an artist. Here's to confidence. Most of the time. Finally.

* Survived endless turmoil at my day job, lived to tell about it. Notable battle scars include a very expensive bill for a mammogram and ultrasound, after doctor found a little lump. This further proves my view that stress absolutely kills and will manifest itself in your body if you don't find a way to get rid of it. Was it worth it? absolutely not. And things are going to change. They have to!

* This was the year of fabulous, fun weddings. In my family, and with my friends. Not to say that there weren't some great ones last year, or the year before, but four in one year has got to be a record for us. Nothing says glamorously trashed like a family wedding. And nothing soothes the soul like a little tradition and some hopeful sentimentalism.

* Cooked a successful holiday meal...if you don't count the fire alarm going off about eight times because of some burning olive oil.

* Realized that nothing could possibly ever be as important as people and that being compassionate and kind is the best thing I could ever do to influence life on this planet. Realizing that I have nothing to prove to anyone, and that "standing up for yourself" isn't always the most important thing in personal relationships.

* A tweet from Deepak Chopra changed my life this year: It said that in the end, everyone is just doing the best they can. We all want to be happy, we all want to feel secure and loved. Boy did that make me look at folks differently, those few times, of course, that I could get over myself for five seconds.

Some how I now know that we are all going to be okay. Life is fun, and horrible all at the same time, fun, horrible, fun, horrible...over and over again. But it always turns out okay in the end. I can say this first hand, because after the semester from hell...I was rewarded with one of the best Christmases I've had in a LONG time! It's the yin and yang, ebb and flow that makes it interesting and keeps us on our toes. What I am SO lucky to have is friends, and a mom and aunts and sisters and cousins. I am so grateful to the people who seem to want to be in my life, for whatever reason. I can be a handful. I am well aware. They are people who have gone to lunch with me when I am no fun at all to be around (and even paid sometimes!), taken my calls, texted me, commented on my blogs, said nice things on my facebook wall, come to my performances, come to my parties, sent me cards, brought me wine, brought me soup, told me when I was acting like a jerk, told me when I was doing a good job, recommended me for gigs, listened to me endlessly complain when they know as well as I do that I have so much to be thankful for and that I should just shut up. It's because of them, really, that I have maintained having a husband and have not driven him batty, because I had other people to spread the love to.

Happy New Year! May you all have more gigs than you can possibly take, bring every audience to tears, and drink lots of wine in the coming year. Love.