Where did this year go? I know you’re probably like me and find yourself saying that at every year’s end, but seriously – where did 2014 go? It was just May and I was sitting with butterflies in my stomach, coercing my finger to press the send button on twitter. It was time for me to say that this website, this passion project, this thing called The Tig, was going live. And I was petrified. That may come as a surprise to you, but let’s be real for a moment. I’m an actor. I have made a career of saying other people’s words for a living and making them sound believable. Yes, we color them with nuance and add subtext to the writing, but at the end of the day I can hide behind the character. It’s their words, their choices. The writer puts them on paper and I give them a voice. Simply speaking, I am the vehicle. But this Tig thing…that was all me. My thoughts, my words, my likes, my ethos. If you didn’t like it, then you probably didn’t like me. And I (including the people-pleasing little girl in me) had to be okay with that.
Now eight months later, and because of your unrelenting support, here we are. “Best of the Web” in InStyle & Elle Magazine, letters from so many of you with content ideas, with thank yous, with best bites from the Phillipines to Qatar, hidden gems found on your travels – we have become a community. This brainchild of mine – of inspired living and dreams coming true, of food and fashion, fancy friends, of role models that make the earth shake, and travel that leaves you absolutely breathless – it caught on. My “little engine that could” – did. And it’s because of you.
May this year bring you endless joy. I hope you take a risk, that you do something that gives you butterflies in the pit of your belly, that you live a life less stifled, and that you exceed your own expectations. You absolutely can and you absolutely must.
Without question this is the happiest I have ever been – personally, professionally, wholly. You are a very large part of that, and I thank you from the bottom of my beating heart. Thank you, my friend, and cheers to a most beautiful 2015!
xx
MM
(photo credit: the one and only Jake Rosenberg)