How often are we new? Every day we wake up with chance to react differently to the world around us. The human body replaces itself on a regular basis, so you literally aren’t the person you were a year ago. Even the conditions around us shift daily, and we are forced to choose to react or not.

I feel so new today. My birthday was a couple of days ago, and I had a chance to reflect about what the last couple of years have sent to me. Or maybe more accurately- what I have sought out.

The first change I made was to dig myself out of the shallow grave of a bad marriage. This was the biggest change, and required the most bravery I have ever had to have in my life. Once you actually make that decision, you have to try to align the rest of your life to it, and it feels like making the wrong size shoe fit: painful. Now, nearly a year out of the gate on that one, things are better, but in addition to the pain of watching that relationship die there was the  inherent uncertainty that attached itself to me and that I forced upon my children.

Then the new career. Real estate at the time I entered it was like trying to ride the surf at Hampton with the tide going out. Not impossible, but difficult to build up momentum. There was a lot of work, but that was good because it kept my mind busy. And I found that I really loved the challenges and the busy-ness of this career.

I just came back from REBar Camp NYC and Inman Connect NYC 2009, which was like another little rebirth. I met a lot of like-minded people that have reinforced the direction that I have felt things are heading. You don’t want to get on a bus that’s running out of gas, and I am sure now that I am on the right bus. The fact that the vehicle is nearly empty doesn’t bother me.

So let me tell you, with all of this that has happened, I understand rebirth and reinvention. Probably more than that, I can empathize with the process, which is incredibly painful, and more difficult than the decision itself. But it’s sweet to be typing this as a new person inside and out, certainly more beautiful than I could have dreamed.