2020
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What a year. Besides the global pandemic, police brutality, and a very stressful election, a lot happened for me personally this year. I’m really thankful that I have a job and my health.
January
I went scuba diving in the Philippines. It was really amazing. I took some photos I’m really proud of. Maybe I’ll post them some time. (I’ve been saying I’ll post them “next week“ all year. Hah.)
I remember hearing about this COVID-19 thing on the news and not being sure if I should worry about it. When I was reentering the US, seeing the US border folks wearing masks made me worry a bit. I had to sign something promising that I hadn’t been to China. So crazy.
February
I quit my job at Lyft after 2.5 years. It is one of my favorite places that I’ve worked. After changing teams and not really liking the new team for a few different reasons, I decided to leave.
It was a bit of a bummer to leave all of my work friends, but my new job, GitHub, was just a few blocks away. I kept saying we can get lunch mid-March. Hah.
March
I went to Joshua Tree for my birthday March 13–15. It was really great. Got a sweet Airbnb and had a good time with some friends. Joshua Tree is one of my favorite places to beautiful there.
March 16th the shelter in place order started. Pretty wild. March 17th was my first day at GitHub. Onboarding was only over Zoom. Pretty weird, but okay.
April
Here’s where things really good a turn for me. April 11th I found out my wife (well now ex-wife) had been sleeping with her boss for over a year. I’ll spare you the details, but here’s the short version. She lied about it until I showed her proof and then she said she wanted a divorce.
So that wasn’t great. I was really sad and lonely for awhile. I didn’t miss her or anything. I missed having someone care about me, etc. My friends were really great during all of this, but still felt pretty sad for awhile.
Specifically Bryn, Sarah J, Chad, Sarah B, Colin, Luke, and Oren were so fantastic just to name a few. I definitely cried more from being so moved about how much my friends cared about me than about other things. Pretty great.
May
One night I decided to renovate my bathroom. I bought this house back in December 2019 with the plan to renovate a few things. Since it was just me now I figured I could go nuts and do whatever I want now. I got up off the couch at ~7pm one night and started tearing the walls down in my guest bathroom. I’ve slowly been working on putting it back together since. More on that in a bit.
June, July, and August
All of this kinda runs together in my memory. Lots of work and working on the bathroom.
For August & the first part of September, my mom drove out with an empty cargo van and I turned it into a camper van. I’ll have to do a separate post on that build process. It was really difficult and rewarding. She uses it a ton now. Makes me smile.
During this bit, I dated someone for 1.5 months. That was pretty great. Made some mistakes but learned a lot. Also hope to feel loved again, etc. Big turning point for me emotionally.
September
The first few weeks I worked on finishing up the van. This was pretty stressful since I had a lot to do and everything kept taking longer than expected. (Seriously, no right angles or straight lines in that whole van. Took forever.)
During this same time, my first post-divorce relationship I mention ended was rough but good. At the same time, my best friend, Bryn, pitched me an idea he had in the shower for a video app.
A few weeks later, we had funding, quit our jobs, and started Along. It was a wild month.
October and November
Most of my time these months were spent working on Along and having a great time doing it. It took a few weeks to get in the groove of working on our own thing, but we got the hang of it.
For Thanksgiving, I spent it with my Bryn and few others in Tahoe after quarantining for a bit. So great to see people for the first time since March.
December
Well here we are. What a year. Mostly worked on Along during December. My mom drove the van back from Kentucky to spend Christmas with me. We didn’t go anywhere or do anything and she stayed in the van on the way out. Definitely nice to see family for Christmas. Weird doing it here with just the two of us though.
While she was visiting, I got reenergized to work on the house. I tore out a bunch of stuff in the kitchen and started redoing that. The guest bathroom is still in progress due to some mistakes. Waiting for more materials to arrive so I can fix my mistakes in January.
I’m having a blast working on the house again.
Final Thoughts
Well it’s definitely been the worst year of my life. I’m really looking forward to seeing my friends in person again, traveling, and experiencing new things next year. Life is good and I’m very fortunate.
If I had it to do over, I wouldn’t pick 2020. It wasn’t all bad though. Onward.