I turned 30 this month. It feels very much like a milestone for me, given I never thought I’d make it this far.

I want to talk about things that are important to me, and I want to talk openly about them. This year has been hard for a number of reasons, but it’s had a few highlights and notable (to me) things happen.

Professionally

This year I was fortunate enough to go to not one, or two conferences but three this year and even speak at them. We had SinCityRuby in March in Las Vegas, then RailsConf in Portland, OR, then last but not least RubyConfMini in Providence, RI. Out of these three conferences, RubyConfMini was my favorite and I’m so glad to have been able to go.

I am however very tired from speaking 3 times in one year, so I think we found a limit to my speaking 😅.

No major changes at work this year, I had a pretty good spread of projects I worked on which helped me when it came time for performance reviews.

This year I made my Learn Hotwire course completely free after a successful launch the year before.

After going hand-to-hand with the burnout monster, I got a much better grasp on having working hours and have been reigning it in.

I’m putting my content stuff in here, even though it borders on Personal, but nonetheless it’s my blog so I’ll put it where I’d like.

I wrote (most of) a book!
This year I wrote most of my Introductory Ruby / Rails book for beginners I’ve wanted to write for many many years. I’m nearing completion of what I think is the first draft of the book and I’m really excited to put it out there, I’ve probably spent somewhere between 300-400 hours thinking about it, researching, writing, editing, tweaking etc. It’s around 135 pages so far and feels like a nice introductory book. I wanted to make it so much bigger than what it is, but I’m also feeling like if I try and make it have everything I want to write about it’ll never get done.

I started a side project I'm super excited about
I’ve clearly kept myself as busy as possible when I’ve been feeling okay but I’ve also been working on a new side project called RelationKit (https://relationkit.io). I’m super excited for the possibilities and where it could end up in a few years. Overall I’ve spent about 5 months building this as well as all the other things I’ve got going on. It’s kind of weird but in a way working on it is rejuvenating me for some of the things I’m working on at work and gives me a sense of control over things I’m working on when you don’t always have that at a Day Job.

I learned a little iOS development
A couple times in 2022 I spent a few weeks doing some iOS/macOS development and made a few macOS utility apps from a tutorial and some iOS apps as well. I even started an iOS app I'm using on my phone day-to-day for keeping track of my most important things to do in a day. It's been fun and I expect to continue learning in 2023.

Personal

My personal updates are where things start to take a bit of a darker turn, while I had seemingly everything going for me professionally, I’ve been struggling with my mental health. I started reaching out and have been working with a care team to work to resolve them but it’s going to be a long road. I also got diagnosed Bipolar II this year, which makes so much more sense given my ups and downs I’d been experiencing for so so much of my life.

Finding out I’m bipolar after years and years of not knowing what was wrong with me and going through the worst thoughts, it’s kind of a miracle I’ve survived as long as I have. I hope by next year I’ll still be here Is that too dark for my own blog? Maybe. Sorry about that, but it’s the truth right now. Every day is a battle and I’m growing tired.

I scrolled through my photo reel tonight and there was a very clear up and down, up and down pattern in my mood, I’d go from feeling on top of the world, like I could do anything to the deep disparity and pits of depression. Rough cycle to be constantly trapped in, but here I am.

Next year

Next year I plan to continue my side projects, and continue the long journey on my mental health. I wish everyone reading a Happy Holidays and hope your new year is a good one.