The Tovsky Tribe: 2010!

Happy New Year! I am not sure how it is possibly ten years into this new milennium, ten years since the y2k scare, ten years since we all went crazy partying like it was 1999, ten years since the year I turned 25, making me almost....well, you do the math. Nope, not sure how it happened, but that was the number flashing at the bottom of the big ball in Times Square as it touched ground (despite Dick Clark's counting blunder) so it must be true!

We welcomed 2010 in the calm of Margate surrounded by good friends! We ate, drank, laughed, celebrated, and our kids had fun being together. Todd and I tried to be gourmet and were only partially successful and Brett and Randi brought over some great desserts that i ate for too many days afterwards.

I have a tendency to get philosophical. It is a sort of mind game that gets my dormant cerebellum exercising. I am not claiming to be Aristotle but get a few libations in me and there is a chance I will come up with a thought or question that may begin a discussion amongst the crowd.

On New Years Eve the question of the night was "How long must you be friends with a new friend in order for them to be an old friend?" This question was triggered by the number of facebook statuses that indicated some derivative of "new year, old friends!"

Amongst us was a range of answers, some quantitative (five years!), others clever (5 years or 40,000 comfort miles, whichever comes first!)

We celebrated with Stacey and Jimmy, Madison and Nicky and Brett and Randi, Sawyer and Livi. We had a blast. Todd has known Stacey for over 20 years. I have known her for at least 15. She is definitely an old friend. Brett and Randi we have known for three years. Despite the fact that I went to college with both of them, we did not really know each other until we met through our children. We have become good friends with them. And, as we enjoyed our night (and our game of "sharts") the answer to the question became so clear. Friendships come in all shapes and sizes. No two are the same, and yet all are special. I may cherish a friendship simply for the history or for the more recent memories that will, one day, be history. Like age, the term "old friend" is just a state of mind, not an actual number. It is a descriptive word, a clarifier, a synonym for "comfort" or "close" or "best" or so many others.

Friendships, old friends, new friends, are what you make of them and each and every one is special.

2009 was a wonderful year which began with the welcoming of our baby boy. I said goodbye to it with a smile to the wonderful year behind me and to the wonderful year ahead. I wish, even 26 days later, all of my family and friends, both the old and the new, a wonderful and happy new year!