I’ve never been particularly great at talking to people but this year it really dawned just how poor of a communicator I am. My greatest problem is not communicating at all, which comes from creating assumptions of myself and others. It’s also not uncommon for me to say a bunch of words without having really said what I actually want to say. Like explaining a complicated thought in the sequence of Momento.
Communicating this poorly has had clear negative effects in my relationships. Family, friends, and even work. I suffer silently, not wanting to inconvenience others or seem incapable. I speak reactively, not proactively. I get lost in thought, future or past, but hardly stay grounded in the present. I also just forget to respond, especially to messages. Out of sight, out of mind has never been more applicable for me as messaging inboxes have only become more fragmented over time.
I need to be honest with myself and seek resources and help. Not doing so will be detrimental to the things and people I care most about.
Speaking of communicating poorly, Luciano has done the complete opposite. It is hard to overstate just how proud I am of his ability to express himself. He speaks a lot of Spanglish but he’s quickly differentiating between the two languages. He likes to sing along to songs, both with his parents and Miss Rachel. He’ll say things like “happy” when he’s visibly content and will followup with “mama happy” and “papa happy” which always just melts my heart.
Luciano spent more than half the year in daycare which was great for his development but took a toll on his immune system. He went to the hospital several times, often for flu or viral infections. Thankfully nothing chronic has been identified, but we’re playing it safe next year by keeping him home with a nanny during the winter season.
Despite seeing him every single day, he really is growing up too fast.
This year we celebrated five years of marriage! I can still remember the wedding like it was yesterday but everything that happened in between feels like a whirlwind. We’ve traveled to 5 countries, 14 states, and numerous cities. I’ve come to learn and happily embrace that I am a “travel princess” as I contribute literally nothing to the planning and just tag along wherever Celeste plans. She is incredible at balancing touristy staples, discovering local favorites, and having plenty of downtime.
Her travel planning could summarize how much I lean on her. I often feel disorganized, whether literally or figuratively, and she helps me piece things together. I don’t understand my emotions as well as I think I do, and she’s been instrumental in helping me slowly unlearn defense mechanisms I developed growing up. Some days it feels like we’re water and oil but most days the balance we have feels great and we compliment each other greatly. I really don’t know what I would do without her.
She’s my best friend, partner in crime, and the greatest thing to ever happen to me.
Celeste and I left Luciano with his grandparents for a week to enjoy Peru on our own, and it was incredible. Easily my favorite country in Latin America to have visited, and overall top only second to the common favorite in the west, Japan.
The food was the best I’ve eaten out of anywhere and prices were unreal. I say this generally on the lower end but also one outlier of a restaurant we ate at, Central, which once earned the award of best restaurant in the world. It was luxurious but seeing the bill at the end of the meal could give most people a small tummy ache. I say skip it and just enjoy the thousands of variations of corn and potato that Peruvians have cultivated over centuries and be in awe of their gastronomy.
The sights were also stunning. Admittedly, I expected too much from Machu Piccu— I wanted cry in awe like I did/do when I see the Delicate Arch but it didn’t happen —yet I greatly admire it as an engineering marvel. We had tour guides for the trip around (city that isn’t Lima), which younger me would have scoffed at but I’ve come to really value convenience. They really elevated the experience with their love for their culture and coming off almost as old friends.
Go visit Peru, you and your taste buds will not regret it.
Last year I was optimistic about this budding social network but did not anticipate its explosive growth. Over the course of a week it grew about twentyfold, and steadily grew for months to come. Being amongst the top 200 early and active users led to a huge following. I started the year with about 600 followers and ended at 75 thousand. I know that number is largely inflated by bots but it holds some weight to it. I like to jokingly tell people I moonlight as a crypto influencer nowadays.
Just to make sure it wasn’t all a total sham, I went out to my first conference ever which was for developers and users of the platform alike. It was about 500 of us over the span of three days in this nice venue in Venice, CA. Farcon was one of the funnest events I’d ever experienced. Recognizing people by their profile pictures on their lanyard never got old and it felt like being reunited with an old friend, dozens and dozens and dozens of times.
I highly recommend anyone in an internet community of sorts to one day organize and meet in person. Or go URL → IRL as they say.
We went to Nicaragua twice this year! Our longer stay was in December and I got to enjoy it much more than usual as I took almost two weeks off for the holiday break. The idea of relocating their one day, whether by choice or greater circumstance, is warming up to me more and more. I really don’t need much to be happy, just my small family, a laptop, and a good internet connection. Some gallo pinto and cacao definitely helps!
I bought more into the Apple ecosystem. Celeste got me an Apple Watch (after admitting I was finally interested in one) and it’s actually started to get me to look at my screen a bit less. I also ditched the Google apps on my iPhone in favor of the native iOS ones and it’s actually been way smoother of an experience. I even consolidated my home lab into a base model M4 Mac Mini. My bet is on Apple Intelligence and giving them as much context to work with to get a capable LLM to do everyday tasks for me. That’s the hope, at least.
I started medicating with Lexapro again, this time alongside Bupropion for my potential ADHD. It’s helped reduce a lot of the inertia I feel when starting up tasks, as well as just feeling a bit more at ease with all my responsibilities. There’s a lot of work to be done but the minor dosing feels like a good boost out of the slump I was experiencing. Shout out to the /adhd group on Farcaster who not only gave me suggestions but were awfully supportive when I was at a low and felt like a broken person.
Another suggestion I got was ACT (acceptance commitment therapy) which seems particularly helpful for those with ADHD. I haven’t started yet but in the four sessions I’ve had so far, I’ve greatly appreciated the thoroughness and structure in the intake process. I’ve done plenty of CBT in the past with varying providers, from master’s students to PhD’s, and the regular question of “so what brings you in this week?” always irked me. It felt more like personal gossiping or just addressing surface level issues, no continuous conversation or plan to address my deeper concerns. I think ACT may be the help I’ve been looking for all this time.
Writing is something I’ve talked about more than I’ve actually done. At least the way I intended to, as I probably did most of my writing this year on Farcaster instead of my personal website. I have gotten some clarity as to what and how I want to write out more longer form pieces, though. I realized as information becomes exponentially abundant and more accessible, the signal-to-noise ratio worsens and it’s harder to find curated and high quality information. Enter, the personal knowledge base, or digital garden as they’re called these days.
As I rebalance my time and attention, especially with tools I use to organize my life, I found myself drawn back to the bullet journal. On my holiday break I discovered discbound journals, which are simple discs used to bind paper in a way that it’s trivial to rearrange and remove pages. I want to believe this will revolutionize my former journaling habit as I ditch my perfectionist tendencies. We’ll see how it goes.
Editor’s note: I had this 80% drafted on New Years Eve and spent 5 weeks procrastinating on polishing the remaining 20%. Off to a great start!