On to 2019

This is what surgery, burnout, and an international move look like.

2018 was a really difficult year, in a lot of ways. While I did claim some accomplishments, I didn't really feel like I did anything of note this year. Moving to a new country and transitioning were certainly significant in the overall course of my life, but it's been really difficult to look back at the year and feel like I didn't have a single notable professional accomplishment.

There were a variety of reasons and contributing factors behind this, but as someone who has considered their career progression an important part of themselves (maybe too much so), it's still a hard feeling to sit with. Rationally, I can see that I did actually do some cool stuff (I gave two talks I'm really proud of, I started doing some writing that I'm excited about) but emotionally, it's difficult not to feel like I failed by not shipping more.

Progress isn't always linear.

That's what everyone keeps telling me, and I'm hoping that if I repeat that to myself enough that I'll start to believe it myself. I'm trying to view 2018 as a year of building foundations, of setting myself up to be happier, healthier, safer, and ready to tackle whatever goals I might set for myself, professional and otherwise, in the future. I did a reasonable job of balancing work and non-work things like I set out to do, but only because I was super on fire and burning out and zero balances out pretty well with zero.

I'm trying to keep looking forward though, so here's what I'm looking to do in 2019:

• I'm looking for ways to change the circumstances that are most contributing to my burnout, and I'm going to try really hard to be kind to myself throughout all of this.

• I want to do more software engineering type work, and I'd love to find some projects that will let me learn and use Go.

• I'd like to do more public speaking in Europe especially.

Here's to the end of 2018, and hoping that next year I'll start feeling more like myself again.