What Even Was 2024?

Ed. Note: This is a personal post. Comments aren’t on, for a reason.

2024 felt like way too much all at once, for almost the entirety of the year. These are in no particular order.

• Our 4yo was diagnosed with early onset IBD, likely Crohn’s. This came on in April and wasn’t diagnosed until over 6 months later. In the interim, it was a very difficult time for him (and us), filled with pain and uncertainty about his body, with procedures and blood work. He adapted in many ways – kids are so incredibly adaptable – but it was either a low hum or a blaring alarm in the background of the year for all of us.
• We had a really unfortunate experience with a Pre-K institution who claimed to support the whole child but failed us spectacularly on that front. So, we also had to part ways with a school, leaving us uncertain about where we’ll enroll our guy in the new year.
• My car died. I had a 2013 BMW 3 series with only 80k miles. The transmission went, which it had no right to do. 😆 I loved that car, but I wasn’t about to fork over that kind of money vs getting a new car. It served me well.
• Donald Trump somehow won the election. This will be bad for everyone, except for maybe Donald Trump. These are good days for bad people.
• Israel engaged in genocide, all year. The devastation is incomprehensible, and yet people are forced to live it. There are thousands of children and their promise who are no longer with us. It was on my mind a lot. It’s devastating, and a generational shame that we collectively failed to stop it. The world should never forgive Israel for what they did this year. I won’t.
• I worked a lot. Too much. It was critical to do, but it often left both my wife and I exhausted which is no good for anyone.
• Because of all of the above, I let almost all social relationships lapse. If you’re somehow reading this, it’s absolutely not you, it’s me. Hoping to patch it up in the coming year.
• I also barely got to do the community things I care about. OSS contributions, blog posts, meetups, conferences – it all kind of got set aside this year. Is what it is.
• My fitness and sleep were abysmal. I started tracking it again, which helped toward the end of the year, but obviously combined with everything else, it wasn’t great.

Despite all of this, there were bright spots.

• While work was hard, it was also the best year of work I’ve ever done. I built an amazing team, and did an incredible amount of work to recover the org from a year of lost progress. We have a cloud platform, in production, running 3 different products, with a team of 7. We have processes for development and operations. We can deliver changes to prod in minutes, safely. I built a huge portion of that this year (my team did a ton too but I can confidently say the platform for our delivery was 95% me). I instituted dozens of processes. I hired some fantastic people who contribute a ton and make me better. I’m excited about the next year there and I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished and what I’ve contributed. And I managed to avoid burning out for most of the year, because I love the work and the team and the leadership.
• The flip side of a car dying is that there’s a new car. We got a 2025 Honda Accord Touring edition. It’s a hybrid but still fun enough to drive that I don’t miss the BMW. It has all the gadgets and bells and whistles that I could possibly want. I can warm it up from my phone. The touchscreen is huge. Love it so far.
• I moved away from Twitter, to a combination of Mastodon and BlueSky. It led to less social media and healthier engagement with it, which I’m calling a win.
• This is my 5th year as a Microsoft MVP. I would have liked to have done more with it this year, but circumstances simply didn’t allow. But that doesn’t take away my feeling of gratitude for being included in the program and recognized.
• We still had some lovely trips in 2024. An great time in OBX with friends, a really fun family trip to Lancaster.
• I saw Lawrence live in concert. The show was so good that it makes this year’s highlights. Will absolutely be trying to see them whenever they’re in town.

So what’s the focus for 2025? I’m not a resolutions person, but I do have some goals.

• If the last year at work was “make it happen”, this year at work will be “make it sustainable”.
• I’m hoping family / medical stuff stabilizes enough that I can first get my partner a bit of a break, and then maybe recover some of the joyful community participation that I missed so much this year.
• Building better habits around diet, exercise, and sleep.
• Working to better identify stress levels, work to mitigate them, and ensure I don’t fall back to unhealthy defaults.

Dear reader, I wish you – and all of us – health, happiness, and peace in 2025.