With my trip to New York wrapped up, I have had a full day to reflect on the events of BlogHer’10.

The experience, for me, was not about the venue or the sponsors. It’s not about the parties either (though I’m not going to lie, Mama Pop knows how to throw one down).

BlogHer conferences are about learning from each other, about our work, our craft and about our overall awesomeness as a community. We. Are. Awesome.

Of course, some of us are more awesome than others. There are true artists in our midst. People who ooze creativity and whose presence in a room makes the air vibrate and increases our collective intelligence because they actually make us think. And, feel. And, live.

One of those artists is Karen Walrond. She is a genius. She exudes brilliance and I feel like I am more aware of everything since I met her. Not to mention that what she said here, made me cry in all kinds of good ways.

I was so fortunate to get my own personal photo shoot on the streets of New York with Karen behind the lens. I had been in the city for almost two days before we met and had been dealing with a massive headache that would not go away. I was tense, nervous and the stress of the previous two weeks was inside my brain trying to pound its way out.

After spending time with Karen, though? My headache went away, the tension was gone and I finally breathed. She was, quite literally, the cure for what ailed me.

Thank you, Karen, for more than just this photograph. Thank you for making me feel joyous and alive. Thank you for the gift of knowing you.

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I got to New York less than 18 hours ago, but have already seen so much. Let’s take a tour, shall we?

There are a lot of people.

There are people bathing in public. (See him down at the bottom? I didn’t get close enough to see if he had any pants on. My guess? Probably not.)

There is old.

There is new.

There are tons of buildings.

And, there is an empty space in the sky where buildings used to be.

Overall, I like it here. It’s hot, busy, smelly, crowded and you have to wash your feet a lot, but it’s alive. Everywhere. All the time.

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I didn’t even realize it at the time, but my last blog post was my 500th. I had another post prepared for today, but as I logged in to type it, I saw the big 5-0-0 was hit a few days ago.

Five hundred posts and over three years of my life spent here at my home away from home. Momo Fali’s isn’t just a blog for me; it has been my journey through time. Even if most of that time was spent as an insomniac in an Ambien-induced haze.

You might think that I would be looking forward to my 500th post. Anticipating it, planning it and crafting each word carefully. Umm…nope. I haven’t even planned dinner lately.

As I have come to realize, anticipating and planning don’t necessarily mean that things will turn out the way you intended. I didn’t anticipate having two premature kids. I didn’t plan for a child with health and behavioral problems. My husband and I didn’t craft our (legitimate) careers in the mortgage industry, only to have the housing market come crashing down around us.

I know I’m not alone. Life throws curve balls at everyone and, sometimes, you just get blind-sided by a hit that you never even saw coming.

When my son was an infant, things were such a struggle that I continuously told myself, “Don’t take it day to day, or hour to hour…just take it minute to minute”. I knew I could do anything for a minute, so I taught myself to function for 60 seconds at a time.

This is probably why I didn’t see my 500th post coming. I have learned not to look too far ahead because what appears isn’t usually painted like the picture in my head. As a matter of fact, I try to imagine the worst so that I end up pleasantly surprised. That’s right. The worst. I can paint some seriously ugly pictures up in here.

This doesn’t mean that I am negative, just anxiety-ridden. I am a worrier. I am helped by medication, but I am still the woman who goes to therapy with her son and has the psychologist spend a quarter of the allotted time discussing my cuticle picking.

Given the course of my life, filled with twists and turns and sinkholes, I think it’s fitting that I am, instead, celebrating my 501st post.

In my case, it is truly something to celebrate when there was no fretting involved whatsoever.

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