This will be my tenth(!!) year in a row doing these, so you can also read about the years since 2015 if so desired. They are inspired by Tilde, who has taught me that it can be a Good Thing to remember what the last year has been like. Many of the headers in this post are based on my goals for 2024.
The word for this year was abundance. I struggled to bring this take to everything I do — I feel an immense amount of guilt around my privilege these days, and so while I still try to come at things from an abundance mindset, and bring abundance to others, I struggled to apply this across the board.
Met stated goals
👐 Seek ways to be a good neighbor
In addition to helping with the regular things of our annual neighborhood gatherings, I also helped the neighborhood get more prepared for a disaster. We now have a map going of resources in the neighborhood, and those of us who care about response are in touch with each other. I met the amazing woman behind Here Comes the Apocalypse, and we hang out sometimes! Apparently I’ve done well enough that when it was the end of term for our board president, folks wanted me in that role. So here goes nothing!
I’ve also been organizing more radical neighbors for the incoming Trump presidency, to prepare our neighborhood for more political disasters as well as environmental ones. We have our first meeting in the new year, and I’m feeling capable of facing whatever comes out way. And I made a new friend a in late November who knows more about organizing in Oakland, so we can try to be in solidarity!
🧠 Continue iterating on coping mechanisms
I’ve come to terms with not liking sitting around doing calm hobbies. I like side projects. I feel happiest when I’m slightly over subscribed and in jeopardy of not finishing everything. Am I more stressed now than when I was trying out cross stitch? Yes. Am I happier and more fulfilled? Also yes.
While I didn’t get into physical movement as much this year as previous years as a way to help cope, my drinking did hit a point that I feel fine about it instead of agonizing about it constantly. A large part of that is also thanks to being on a peptide changing my addictive drive.
💼 Find new stability at work
Major props to my interim manager and an old colleague who reshaped what I was doing at work so I could have enough to do again. Ends up if I don’t have enough to do, I go stir crazy and get really unhappy and unmotivated. And kudos to my manager when she came back from maternity leave following that lead and leaning into my new responsibilities. I’ve been supporting the Red Teams in making sure the discoveries they make actually change our software systems, rather than just being neat internal research. Now I have a new manager, so we’ll see how that goes.
🧬 Figure out my body at 40
While I wasn’t as physically active as years past, I do think that the combination of being on a peptide, plus self reflection of KAP, plus maintenance activity has led to me understanding my body at 40. Do I want to be a fuckin’ beefcake? Of course! Did I prioritize that this year? No. Still, a quiet success is still a success.
So far as gender dysphoria, I had surgery scheduled, and decided I didn’t need it anymore. I can now wear my bespoke suits and bind my chest again. I can still wear cute dresses with outrageous heels. I’ll’ve been back on testosterone for a year in February, much of that on injectable that’s landing better with my body. I’m also on Finistride to keep the body hair and bottom growth at bay, but my voice also hasn’t dropped yet and I’m sad about it. My strength is BANANAS and I think men in general are Cheating At Life.
I feel cute and nonbinary again, and I love it. It’s adding lots to my confidence. A++
Now that all this has been figured out, it’s shown that there are some deeper issues happening so far as my body/brain connection that is leading to forgetfulness and loss of capacity. So I need to figure that out.
🗞️ Publish a resource for the formal response sector
After many hours of work with my collaborator John Crowley, we looked at our pile of work and abandoned it. When we talked days after the election, we decided the last thing we wanted to do was to make the informal groups more legible to a Schedule F impacted formal sector, and pulled the plug. He, Drew, and I are now all in on the informal response zine. We even have a kickstarter up to make it bigger and better, if you’re so inclined. I’m counting this as a success as it was intentionally done this way.
Unmet stated goals
🚲 At least one century
While I rode my bike to work a few times this year and felt strong doing so, a combination of my deprioritizing things, plus snafus on the group rides we did plan, led to bicycling not being such a big part of my life this year. I think I just need to acknowledge that 100 mile rides take 10+ hours for me, and that’s unlikely with child care being what it is at this stage of our lives. Bicycling will still be important to me, especially as a car-free advocate, but long rides aren’t in the cards right now.
🙈 Find ways to spend less time in cars
I spent way less time in cars than most Americans (79 hours for the whole year), but also more than last year. The things that stymied my plan was a 4 week visit to the East Coast for important Reed family things, which involved a 10 hour drive from Canada to Maine, a trip to and from the Maine lobster festival, and just being somewhere for 4 weeks that didn’t have anything bike accessible. We then went back for another week in December which just put me further in the hole. Next year, I hope.
📚 Little Free Library
I have the mounting of the library on its post and the putting the post in the ground left to do, which I’ll probably get done this week. It’s still staring at me in my office. I’ll blog about it later when I complete it.
Other things
🎂 Birthday party
I turned 40 and in the spirit of past epic birthday parties, threw both a conference about formal/informal disaster response and also hosted 50 friends to see one of my favorite movies.
🌙 Eclipse trip
Reed, Locke, and 8ish of our friends went to Mazatlán, Mexico to see the full eclipse at its first point of landfall. It was Locke’s first international trip and a good excuse to get him a passport. Reed and I definitely had to adapt to not just traveling light with Bromptons, but instead had a child in tow who was SO EXCITED about mangonadas and Banda music. A truly magical experience. We’ll be traveling with this kiddo more in the future.
🫑 Eating less meat
When Reed went on a peptide and it worked, he was able to go off of keto. Which he had been on our entire relationship. Meaning we had been eating meat nearly 3 meals a day for 8 years, especially once we lived together. When he was able to go off, the first thing I asked was that we eat less meat. He has gone all in on a veggie-forward, local, ethically sourced diet for us that I am LOVING on multiple fronts. So grateful to be eating well, and for this house husband.
✍🏻 KAP and writing
As you have probably noticed, I went from 13 blog posts in 2020, to 2 in 2021, to 3 in 2022, to 3 in 2023, to 29 in 2024. While a lot of this has had to do with the zine, I also feel like I have something to say again. The thing about starting work in 2021 at Apple was that I wasn’t sure what I could talk about, and what I had been used to talking about was work. My KAP sessions have reminded me that I have self reflection to share, and things outside of work to talk about.
KAP has also led me to be more self confident and less anxious. I now know I have a time and space to over rotate on things, that I can feel certain of my outcomes on. I’m so so grateful for this therapy and hope it can continue under Trump.
🇬🇧 2 International trips
We’re working on the sessions of a chest piece, and got through two of them this year. We also got to complete a piece on risks and fostering care, and start on a piece about holding onto hope in dark times. I loved getting to visit with friends in the UK and France as well, and spending too much money at Dashing Tweeds. So so grateful to Reed for holding down the fort at home while I go do these very silly and over the top trips that mean so much to me.
👦 Parenting
The toddler phase is suiting us so much better than the infant stage did. Locke is enjoying having opinions, doing things on his own, and contributing. I love it so much. And we very clearly have a LEGO kid. He decided we should both be crabs for Halloween in June and stuck with it through Halloween day. He even wanted to be a crab still for Christmas, but the costume didn’t fit in the luggage.
🔉 Priceless & retreat
I help organize an art and music campout some summers. I came on strong with a lead organizing role for my first two years, and then burned out hard and went on to do less strenuous roles. However, the group seems to be slowly coming apart at the seams and I want to help us figure out what we’re doing. We decided we want to keep going, and that we’re willing to make some pretty radical changes in order to do so. This year will be an experiment in trying those things out to see if we can ship a festival without burning folks out.
2025
My phrase for 2025 will be something I’ve already begun working on – empathy without responsibility. I was exhausting myself by always wondering if I was focused on the right thing, always doing triage on what might be a better use of my time. Instead, I’m going to focus on what is in front of me and what I have some influence over. I can send money to Translifeline and if a trans kid from Florida shows up on my porch I can house them. But I cannot drop everything in my life to move to Florida to fight the good fight. What I am already doing matters, and I should focus on it.
Goals for 2025
- 🧠 Figure out what’s happening with my brain/body that has caused me to lose so much focus and connection.
- 👐 Figure out how to be in solidarity with Oakland organizers.
- 🙈 Spend less time in cars.
- 📰 Publish zine.
- ✍🏻 One blog post per month about something that brought me joy.
- 💪🏻 Figure out fitness again.
Love you, love this.
Thank you for sharing.
I’ve been reflecting on what I want to leave behind in 2024. A lack of awareness of my internal state and how it drives me to do silly things (focusing on tasks, regardless of their importance is a big one).
With the losses of age, sometimes I get a glimmer that helps me live more gently. Grateful.