I’m on holiday from tomorrow , so posts are going to be erratic until the new year. A few things I want to mention:

* The puppy found a home! Thanks to everyone who sent me e-mails, links and contacts. A special shout-out to fellow journalist Ms. B. Sen for going that extra mile. You rock!

* I’m skipping my usual what-I-achieved-this-year post. I have certainly achieved a lot this year, including one of my lifetime goals of getting published in Time magazine (next piece out in less than a week). I lived in Africa, I’m living in America, I interviewed some amazing people, I worked with some of the best journalists in the business, and I learned the most important thing of all: I am capable. Both personally and professionally, this year has been amazing. I have been blessed with a lot of good things this year, but making a list of them this time around seems inappropriate.

*That said, this year has been the most difficult year in my entire adult life financially. Even though I’ve come dangerously close to giving up and getting a job, I know that doing so would be putting myself at odds with who I truly am. I don’t mention my financial troubles to further depress the already depressed, but to tell you that the fluctuations are a part of this career, and you need to be able to deal with them. No matter how successful you get and no matter how many credits follow your name, you are always prone to changes in the market. Enjoy your success, but don’t get too attached to it. A freelancer is always one bankrupt client away from financial woes.

* When I was about ten years old, I had a cousin who I really admired. I never really got to know her, but to my ten-year-old mind, she was what I wanted to be at age twenty-six. Confident, independent, successful. As I went through life, I faced many challenges, but a cycle of depression was possibly the biggest one. That number– twenty-six– stuck in my mind. That was going to be my peak year. The best year of my life. The year in which it would all come together. The months before my twenty-sixth birthday were probably the hardest I’ve been hit with depression in my entire life. When I had all but given up, a writer encouraged me to find strength in words. I started blogging again, I started sharing my honest thoughts with my writer’s group, and they helped me get through it.

I didn’t expect twenty-six to be anything special, let alone the best year in my life, but something happened on my birthday that completely shocked me: I received, suddenly and unexpectedly, my first assignment from Time. What was amazing about this, was that for a month preceding this, on the prodding of a friend, I had taken to writing daily affirmations in my journal. One of my affirmations: “I will get an assignment from Time before my birthday.”

I turn twenty-seven next week. And I can say, without any doubt, that twenty-six has indeed been one of the best years of my life.

Enjoy the holiday season everyone!