Last year, I had the honor of picking up the BlogHer Voices of the Year mantle from my predecessors late in the season. I remember standing backstage and holding my breath as each person read, feeling their excitement and nerves bubbling as they rushed breathlessly on and off, some breaking into tears as they stepped backstage into a line of hugs from a group of recently former strangers.

This year, I went through the entire process soup to nuts. Voices of the Year is so multi-dimensional with so many moving pieces, but it's still magical.

It's magical.

This year was my tenth BlogHer conference and my sixth as a full-time BlogHer (now SheKnows Media) employee. This year we rolled out the video production talent of my colleague Melissa Haggerty and her team. This year we captured not only performance of the written word, but also the many other ways we're expressing ourselves, from Liv's dual-faced make-up GIF of the face of suicide to Samantha's shocking and heartfelt Twinsters video to Feminista's #NMOS14 social impact, as well as the show-stopping readings we expect from VOTY.

The day and night went by in a blur of image checks and confirmations, and afterward I cried for a minute in the restroom because I have so much respect for, well, the office of VOTY that I'd been terrified I would somehow screw it up.

One of the things we learned this year from #BlogHer15 is to own your body of work. I am adding this year's VOTY production to my body of work with a large measure of satisfaction and so much respect for Elisa, Melissa, Jamie, Joy, Lori and all of my other partners in awesome. Thanks for sharing this with me. And congratulations to our 84 2015 Voices of the Year: http://m.blogher.com/introducing-work-2015-voices-year-featured-honorees

(from my phone and my heart)