It’s Midlife Boulevard’s One Year Anniversary!

We made it!

Had you asked my partner Anne Parris or me a little over a year ago if we’d still be here, doing this a year later, it might have taken us a few minutes to gather ourselves and our thoughts and give you a coherent answer. At the time, we were overwhelmed with our desire – and what we considered our responsibility – to create something new, something special, and something that we believed in with all our hearts.

Had you told me a little over two years ago that someday my business partner would be a woman I’d never met before who is a southern girl who lives across the country from me, with a heart as big as all outdoors, a lightning-fast sense of humor and a way of connecting with people that is something you’re born with and can’t be learned, I might have thought you were nuts.

I’m sure if you’d told Anne that her business partner would be a cynical, straight-shooting and quick-tempered New York-raised Jewish girl in California who prefers reading and writing to conferences and Google hangouts, she would have thought the same thing.

Anne is Richie Cunningham to my Arthur Fonzarelli. She is Shirley to my Laverne. Mary Richards to my Rhoda Morgenstern. Thelma to my Louise. We are a great balance. Anne keeps me calm and I wipe the stars from her eyes. It just works.

Anne and me at BlogHer’14

So here we are. We’ve made it this far, and we plan on sticking with Midlife Boulevard for as long as we have readers and contributors, sponsors and advertisers. We love what we’re doing. We love our columnists who come up with original, interesting things to say for each post, the writers and bloggers who contribute work they’re especially proud of, the readers who comment, the brands who support us, the community that has cheered us on from the start. Anne’s husband keeps our website up and running, my husband keeps our heads out of the clouds. We’ve just hired our first employee, and we look forward to adding more employees as we grow.

It hasn’t always been smooth or easy. Publishing 3 new posts, 5 days a week takes a lot of time. Anne still has 2 children at home. Over the past year there have been ups and downs in our lives that have affected each of us to the point that we had to step away from what we were doing to regroup. We have always had each other’s backs, always understood.

And always we’ve felt the support of all of you, in so many ways. Whether by email, private message, handwritten note or positive comments, we know you are out there, appreciating Midlife Boulevard and enjoying the exceptional writing we share from over 200 contributors. We’ll publish our 900th post this week, Our 1000th before the end of 2014.

That’s a lot of words about midlife, and there’s still a lot more to be said.

To celebrate our one year anniversary, we’re giving away four of our favorite books of Fall 2014 to one lucky winner.

Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult
Lila by Marilynne Robinson
Some Luck by Jane Smiley
We Are Not Ourselves by Matthew Thomas

Enter through our Rafflecopter widget below.

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