Returning

Without question, I can say that at the end of this year I feel more like myself. It felt like a year of returning, to places and to ways of being, after 2024 was so brutal. I wanted to renew in 2025 and I feel that I truly did. As with the last two years, my guiding values remain:

• be more present.
• move slower/be more careful (with my words, driving, slowing down in general).
• be more intentional (make time for the things I care about).
• be more curious (read more, less screen time, listening).
• be — less justifying, less defensive, stay firm. 
• be a community builder (have people over, volunteer, connect folks).
• be with life as it is and be shaped by it (added on March 6th, 2024).
• be bold – have more “absurdly alive” moments (added today, Dec 31st, 2024).

Practically speaking, when reflecting on these values, I am feeling called to a few iterations I’ve already begun for the year ahead:

• More friend trips. I have had a lot of family time between my own broader family and my partner’s.
• Less alcohol. This is part of being present and intentional.
• Be a bit braver with my career. It’s an area I can be cautious with and haven’t always caught up to myself with.
• Adventure with myself more, whether a solo date night or a trip out into the world with my minicooper.

I’m finding it hard to reflect on this year, a likely result of feeling so grounded in the present. I have a lovely few months in the sun to get a break from Seattle. I have barely taking time off during the holidays not because I need to work but because I enjoy the quiet time to think and dig into work in new ways. My body feels so, so much better after some tough injuries and I’m having way too much fun lifting weights a ton in a way I haven’t physically been able to do for a while. This year is a good reminder that the pendulum does swing and that sometimes we’re in a position to help ensure it does.

2025 marked my second sabbatical, during which I asked (mostly older) loved ones a question around what they would recommend I do now to set myself up well 20 years from now. My uncle mentioned going to a naturopath so I did and, since April after some blood work scared me, I drastically changed my relationship to sugar. I have a wicked sweet tooth, inherited from my dad, and have tried in various ways to change the habit. When I first made up my mind to try to do so, I came to my partner in tears knowing I needed her help and support. Sugar is a coping mechanism ultimately and there was fear on the other side of not having it as much as I was. I am ridiculously proud of myself for how much has changed here, how better I feel, and how it helped me live out a value of intentionality. Now, when I eat something sweet, I get something high quality and truly enjoyable rather than mindless. My body and blood work has thanked me for it.

During my sabbatical too, I spent two weeks with my phone and computer off–an exercise I am planning to do again this year for the exact same length in the exact same place and for nearly the exact same dates. I took my mom on an 80th birthday roadtrip where she reconnected with many loved ones she hadn’t seen in sometimes decades. I frolicked in new places with old friends and loved ones. I also met someone born through surrogacy for the very first time and am still processing that milestone. To look into the eyes of someone else who knows this distinct pain and who is surviving it brought me both so much joy and so much heartbreak thinking about all of us out there suffering in silence. I now have a little group chat of a small crew of us that randomly lights up and that often is compartmentalized away by each of us. I continue to think about a message I received from the same one I met: “But we aren’t alone. You aren’t alone ever again.” I continue to write on surrogacy-stories.com to try to educate, advocate, and connect even as it always comes at a deep personal cost.

I don’t write too much about “career” as I’m not particularly ambitious nor do I have some grand career plan or goal. I simply like to work hard on interesting, difficult problems alongside others doing the same and that has taken me farther than I thought it would. This last year marked 11 years with Automattic and a new job, Architecture Wrangler. Almost one year in and I’m really enjoying the spread and scale of work I get to do with so many others. It feels like just the right amount of stress that pushes me but doesn’t push me over the edge. This year also marked a layoff at Automattic and I’d be remiss now to encourage folks who are hiring to see if anyone on this list is still looking for a job. Such stable and interesting work is a pure luxury and privilege and I hope I never forget that and always try to pay it forward.

While I had big work trips to Berlin, San Francisco, New York, on and on, those trips don’t stand out amongst the many I had with loved ones: my mom’s 80th birthday (all over the east coast), visiting my Uncle in Palm Springs (his wintering spot), my partner meeting my parents and some broader cousins at Kanuga in Hendersonville (NC), my parents visiting me in Seattle (WA), exploring my partner’s family cabin in Montana with her best friend, celebrating my partner’s grandpa’s 93rd birthday in Sun City (AZ), and my trip to visit my birthmom and broader family in Claremore (OK). Do you see why I want more friend trips in the mix too?

Most of these trips will be repeated in the year ahead as habits and patterns form around the meaningful time spent together. To help with making this all the more sustainable and financial responsible, my partner and I moved in together without basing our future relationship on living together (aka moving out doesn’t equal breaking up), allowing me even more ease to travel and be more nomadic while still keeping a very grounding home base with her. As we say to each other, “I want more with you” and that’s how I feel about life right now. It’s not more in the sense of more stuff or things but more in the sense of more of the same. Perhaps that’s why it’s been hard to reflect as I look ahead at the months to come and see the ways in which, if I’m lucky, I will get to have exactly that. Up next, a week off work to take a roadtrip to Sedona with a childhood best friend of 20 years where we’ll blast the punk music of our youth in the big, white Jeep Wrangler I’m renting, stay up late talking, go on long hikes, eat damn good food, and be absurdly alive. Not all years are good years and I am cherishing that this one truly was.