A decade is a long time in anyone’s life, but a comment from a friend has been weighing on my mind since yesterday: this decade, the one that expires in two days, represents more than a third of the years I’ve been alive.

At the start of this decade, I was still at Pearson College, getting ready to graduate and explore new opportunities at Georgetown. A lot has changed in ten years.

Since then, I have graduated from high school and university; I have visited and worked in dozens of countries across the world; I have flown into more airports than most people can name; I have fallen in love and had my heart broken a few times; I have kayaked in three different oceans; I have started my own consulting gig and watched it flourish; I have had numerous clients and contracts; I have made friends that will last me a lifetime and some that were wonderfully intense for a few weeks or days; I have written thousands of letters on pretty notecards and paper; I have plunged into depression and had experiences that have almost crushed my soul; I have helped launch projects that I can now look back upon with a sense of accomplishment; I have watched several people close to me pass away, and others get married and start new lives together; I have constantly and continually found happiness in the smiles, in the hugs, and the wonder of others around me; I have loved and have been loved deeply, fondly, beautifully.

There have been many people that have changed my life this decade — teachers, employers, family members, strangers, best friends — and I hope that, in some small way, I have had at least a tiny impact in the lives of a few people these past ten years.

I’m off to Chicago tomorrow to celebrate the end of the year and the coming of a new decade with loved ones. In the meantime, here’s a look back at 2009, briefly:

2009: I Tell Stories

A few of my favorites (selected from the 84 posts I wrote on this site) this year.

Letting Go (January)
“Those of you who haven’t had someone close to you get married will be extremely surprised by the amount of burgers, hot dogs, Red Bulls and Diet Cokes that is consumed on an average wedding day.”

Twenty-seven (February)
“Today, as I celebrate my twenty-seventh birthday and enter what is officially my late twenties, I’d like to assure my teenage self that I have never stopped dreaming and that I’m still driven by smiles.”

Pocket change. (March)
“The old man hadn’t spoken to his son in twelve years. On that piece of paper was the return address corner of an envelope of a card his grandson had mailed to him over eight years ago.”

Release. (April)
“For the past six years, I couldn’t imagine life without my plush Pooh Bear. Two weeks ago, I gave him away.”

Social Media: A Defense (April)
“I have seen innumerable tweets, blog posts, and videos that all decry the so-called ‘social media expert’ or anyone working in social media as hacks who know nothing about their craft and are trying to brand themselves as being professionals in a domain which they do not really understand”

The Return. (May)
“I came home from work last night to find a small UPS package waiting for me at my apartment. In it, a plush toy and a two-page letter.”

Welcome party. (July)
“I was alone and a little overwhelmed. The cab driver could see the excitement and apprehension on my face. He offered to give me a quick tour of the city before dropping me off at my dorm.”

Left behind. (August)
“All my life, I’ve been the one who did the leaving. I left my birthplace as a baby, and left New York as a child. I eschewed going to the same high school as all my friends in order to go to a French school in downtown Toronto, and ended up leaving that school after a few years to finish my secondary education on the other side of the country.”

Mountains. (December)
“The weather was perfect for a leisurely hike: a paper-thin mist hung low in the morning sky, just barely covering the peaks of the mountains in a hazy gray while below the valleys were filled with verdant trees and crimson rocks that shined as they caught the errant rays of sunshine that peeked through the light fog.”

2009: World Wide Web

A few of my favorite articles, blog posts, and feature stories written this year, A non-exhaustive list, of course.

Maxing Out Your Triangle (Jack Cheng)
“Some people might ascribe to the philosophy that it’s okay to be at a well-paid-yet-crappy day job and use the remaining time and money enjoying your hobbies. I disagree.”

Does She Love You? and Does He Love You? (Pasha Malla)
“If when his mother calls he looks you in the eyes through the whole conversation, which obviously comprises her asking questions about you and him answering with vagaries like ‘Yeah, great,’ and ‘For sure, really good,’ and when he hangs up he doesn’t say anything, just sits there grinning like a total fucking idiot—he’s sort of a pathetic momma’s boy, but so was Biggie, and, whatever, he loves you.”

Remembering Gene (Roger Ebert)
“Gene died ten years ago on February 20, 1999. He is in my mind almost every day.”

Is Food the New Sex? (Mary Eberstadt)
“What happens when, for the first time in history, adult human beings are free to have all the sex and food they want?”

What You’ll Wish You’d Known (Paul Graham)
“If I were back in high school and someone asked about my plans, I’d say that my first priority was to learn what the options were. You don’t need to be in a rush to choose your life’s work. What you need to do is discover what you like. You have to work on stuff you like if you want to be good at what you do.”

Why Do They Stay? (hilzoy)
“So imagine yourself, in love with someone, on your honeymoon or pregnant, when suddenly this guy just goes ballistic, often for very little reason, and hits you. For a lot of women, this is profoundly shocking and disorienting.”

Pretty Sketchy (Jason Santa Maria)
“Sketchbooks are not about being a good artist, they’re about being a good thinker.”

Like Mother, Like Son (Men’s Health)
“I’d like to say I am all man, but 50 percent of me, genetically speaking, is 100 percent Mom. I am reminded of this every morning when I look in the mirror and see her unibrow reclining above my eyes like a caterpillar on a deck chair.”

Blind Prom (Sarah Wilson, Nicole Pasulka)
“I remember last year overhearing a conversation a couple was having as they were reuniting before prom. She grabbed his hand and ran his fingers along the sequins of her dress, to the curls in her hair, and to the strand of pearls around her neck. His response was an exuberant, ‘Wow, you look so beautiful!’ I know that she felt beautiful.”

15 Ways to Fix the World (The Atlantic)
“‘Make no little plans,’ said President Barack Obama last spring as he rolled out a pitch for a high-speed rail network—yet another presidential initiative to lift America out of recession and chart a new national course.”

Being alone (Maria Pontikis)
“The best company in the world, I think, is sitting in an armchair reading, with a favourite person close-by – each of us doing our own thing – occasionally looking up to smile or share a passage. The welcome being of quiet company. Feeling someone around without words, indulging in the reverent dead air.”

Sincerely, John Hughes (Alison Fields)
“Tonight, when I heard the news that John had died, I cried. I cried hard. (And I’m crying again.) I cried for a man who loved his friends, who loved his family, who loved to write and for a man who took the time to make a little girl believe that, if she had something to say, someone would listen.”

Politics of the Plate: Selling the Farm (Barry Estabrook)
“After six generations on the same 400 acres of rolling pastures, lush fields, and forested hillsides tucked up close to the Canadian border in Vermont’s remote Northeast Kingdom, the Borlands were no longer a farm family.”

Good Tips at the End of His Meals (Frank Bruni)
“Scratch off the appetizers and entrees that are most like dishes you’ve seen in many other restaurants, because they represent this one at its most dutiful, conservative and profit-minded. The chef’s heart isn’t in them.”

The Awesomeness Manifesto (Umair Haque)
“Let’s face it. ‘Innovation’ feels like a relic of the industrial era. And it just might be the case that instead of chasing innovation, we should be innovating innovation — that innovation needs innovation.”

Rules to Eat By (Michael Pollan)
“Every trip to the supermarket these days requires us to navigate what has become a truly treacherous food landscape. I mean, what are we to make of a wonder of food science like the new Splenda with fiber”

100 Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do (Bruce Buschel)
“Do not make a singleton feel bad. Do not say, ‘Are you waiting for someone?’ Ask for a reservation. Ask if he or she would like to sit at the bar.”

Back to the Land (Maira Kalman)
“The fabric of our lives is bound in the food that we eat and the way we sit down to eat.”

Barack Obama’s Work in Progress (Robert Draper)
“But to the Obama White House, words are deeds. This belief that the president can swoop down and save the day with a game-changing speech has become a cornerstone of the administration’s political strategy.”

Belly and heart (Maria Pontikis)
“Now and again, one is so amazing that we cheer in delight and fall off our chairs and triumphantly proclaim that in the history of friends and recipes, none has been better and none will be better, until the very end of time.”

Thoughts on tour (Charlie Hoehn)
“And therein lies the best career advice I could possibly dispense: just DO things. Chase after the things that interest you and make you happy. Stop acting like you have a set path, because you don’t. No one does.”

Rebuild. (Jon Crowley)
“Unless you’re supremely lucky, you’ve probably gone through something in life that broke you. Not permanently, maybe not even visibly, but there has been one, or many experiences that have left you in a state that isn’t quite what you, or those close to you, would call pristine. This is okay.”

Faux Friendship (William Deresiewicz)
“Yet what, in our brave new mediated world, is friendship becoming? The Facebook phenomenon, so sudden and forceful a distortion of social space, needs little elaboration. Having been relegated to our screens, are our friendships now anything more than a form of distraction?”

2009: My Year in Cities

Arlington, VA
Chicago, IL
Denver, CO
Milwaukee, WI
New York, NY
Philadelphia, PA
Roanoke, VA
San Francisco, CA
San Jose, CA
Washington, DC

Montreal, Canada
Ottawa, Canada
Toronto, Canada
Waterloo, Canada

Barcelona, Spain
Birmingham, United Kingdom
Istanbul, Turkey
London, United Kingdom
Paris, France

(One or more nights were spent in each place. Inspired by Kottke.)

On to 2010

The year 2009 comes to a close in two days, and with it, memories — of Bosphorus-side parties, hot air balloon rides, ducks in pairs, Australian beaches, fireside Thanksgiving dinners, Spanish culinary adventures, graffiti-marked castle turrets, space monkey searches at the museum, and so much more — will be stored away as remembrances of years past.

Time to usher in a new decade, to be surrounded by our favorite friends, and to remind the special people in our lives that they are appreciated, valued, and loved, every single day.

Thank you, all of you, for your support, encouragement, feedback, and honesty through this year and those that came before it. Happy New Year!

(Photos by: Amber Ellis, -34, Maria Pontikis, John Gruber, Jaci Sue, Jennie Clutterbuck, Heidi Swanson.)