The only statement I can make about 2014 that I suspect most people would agree with is: that was some year, huh?

The best things that happened in 2014 for me were financial and professional:

I got a new job that came with a shit-ton of new fascinating problems to solve, a pretty nice pay jump (plus a second pay bump in December, earned by hard work and leveling up), and a boatload of really awesome coworkers. I definitely love my work and appreciate being well-compensated, but it’s my coworkers that make me, as Lew says, “look forward to my Mondays.” They’re smart, hilarious, and committed to doing great work solving problems with software. I have crazy respect for them as engineers, managers, leaders, and human beings, and they inspire me to do better work and be a better coworker.

And I bought a house. I have more mixed feelings about buying my house than I do about getting my new job, but it was definitely the right decision for me, even if injuring my ankle again the day after moving into it wasn’t the best plan. I’m more relaxed and happier having my own walls, and I’m hoping that I won’t need to move again anytime soon either, after five years in Portland and five different residences. It was great to host my parents for Christmas and have them see how the house fits me, in terms of its size, function, and location — a little outside confirmation that I wasn’t totally crazy to embark on this. Growing into homeownership is more of a process than I realized; there are a lot of responsibilities, and doing them on my own’s a decent-size thing to take on.

The worst areas of my life this year were definitely the physical and, for lack of a better term, spiritual:

My physical health was again torpedoed by my second ankle injury in two years. One thing I have learned by this time is that I’m too apt to let the whole health thing go when one aspect of it is hard — my eating goes to crap, and I don’t try to make up for the lack of foot-based exercise with other exercise. I’m reaching a point in my life where that isn’t a great idea (not that it ever was a fantastic one) because rebounding will take a lot of effort. I’m doing better than I was when I wrote my last post, in large part due to my shift in thinking around pain, but I’m still not 100%.

I also totally ran out of bandwidth for active civic engagement, and that combined with a physical injury that made getting around and therefore socializing hard meant I got somewhat isolated from friends and withdrew from hobbies and efforts that had been defining my view of myself for the last eight years — bicycling and bicycle advocacy being the biggest one. I’ve hardly ridden at all this year, except in short jaunts to my friends’ houses. I haven’t done any public advocacy since February, which was a conscious choice, and I also haven’t done anything really active within the growing movement around racial justice. I’ve been doing some quality reading and thinking about all of it, but I can’t say I’m totally pleased with my choices, or even very at peace with them.

There are a few things that I’ve already decided I want to do in 2015, as a consequence of what 2014 was like. One is regular yoga and meditation practice. Another is more house things. I’m trying to cut myself a little slack as I understand that homeownership is a process, but not too much, because I need to get less intimidated by these things, and just do them. Finally, I want to do more active, adventurous things with friends — the things I stopped doing this year because I was injured, overwhelmed, and busy with mundanities. I think my motto for the year might be ‘centered and capable’.

We’ll see how it goes.