An Open Love Letter to JSConf EU, and How it Ended My 2016

Content note: I get deeply personal in this article, and talk about a lot of shitty things from 2016.

JSConf EU 2017 in Berlin, and the Node.js Collaborator’s Summit right before it, were absolutely stunning. Karolina, one of the organizers and my friend, had this to say about it:

She’s right, this conference really is on the forefront and is the single best JavaScript conference in the entire world. I came away feeling inspired in a way that I haven’t felt in a very long time.

To date, there have been two events I attended that have fundamentally changed who I am. The first was JSConf US 2013, where I was introduced to the JavaScript community and which permanently altered the course of my career. The second was a social event in early September of 2015 that introduced me to some of my closest friends, who are now like family.

JSConf EU 2017 just may end up being the third such event.

I see infinite possibilities in front of me right now filled with chances to make a difference, in myself, in others, in our community, in the world. But first, some context.

2016 was an incredibly hard year for me. This is an obvious thing to say for most people, but 2016 was doubly so for me. My 2016 started early in the fall of 2015 when Pandora acquired Rdio. To this day, Rdio is the single best job I’ve ever had (sorry Microsoft). I didn’t get to do all the things I wanted to do there and I didn’t leave when I was ready. That job was taken from me, and I don’t think I have been able to work through all of the pain of that loss yet. I loved Rdio, dearly. I loved it not just because it was a wonderful product, although it was that, or not just because I did amazing work there, although I did that, or not even because my team was amazing, although it was that. I loved it because we were a family, to a degree that I’ve never seen in another company (mine or others). I loved Rdio because we proved it’s possible to have a team that delivers good work while providing a culture of respect, diversity, and inclusion. I deeply miss Rdio, still, a year and a half later, and the loss of Rdio gutted me.

I moved to Microsoft after a short stint at Pandora. Although there were other valid reasons I left, deep down I don’t think I was able to forgive Pandora for taking Rdio away. My first role at Microsoft was working on a pretty awesome Node.js debugging tool called Glimpse (it was released yesterday, you should try it!). That team was definitely the smartest team I’ve ever worked with, and I learned so much there. I grew a lot as an engineer, and I’m really proud of the work I did there. But. That team wasn’t family, and I wasn’t as enthusiastic about the product as I was about Rdio. I think I intentionally chose this role because I didn’t want to be hurt again and was looking for something I could be more distant from. Of course I should have known it wasn’t sustainable, and by the end of 2016 it was obvious to me and my manager that the team was no longer a good fit. With the help of my old manager, I’m on a new team at Microsoft now, and I’m genuinely enthusiastic about it and the people I work with.

While the loss of Rdio and struggles with adapting to Microsoft played an important role in my unhappiness last year, that was far from the only thing.

My country elected an actual fascist as president, along with a vice president who doesn’t think I deserve the same rights as him because I’m not straight. We lost so many celebrities and role models who were instrumental in telling so many of us growing up that it’s ok to be who we are.

A gunman killed 49 queer people in a nightclub one night in Miami, because they were queer. I felt real, visceral fear because I am queer, just like they were. It felt like the floor disappeared beneath my feet.

A friend of mine, who I met at Rdio, one of the most amazing people I knew, died of cancer. He was only 43. I’m starting to cry for him, again, as I write this. My grandmother died too. We weren’t particularly close because of geographic distance, but she had always been a constant in my life.

The Node.js Foundation Inclusivity Working Group, which I was instrumental in founding in 2015, imploded spectacularly in mid 2016. I was leading the group at the time, its failure was my failure.

Change doesn’t happen overnight, we all know that. The thing I wasn’t prepared for, that I didn’t know I’d have to face, was that I was forced to watch my community, broken because of a few bad actors, create a trail of bodies, of my friends’ bodies, who were deeply hurt because of toxicity. I was helpless to do anything about it. Even worse is knowing there were more bodies to come, that I would be helpless yet again. That is, by far, the hardest thing about inclusivity work for me I realize. I think I stopped trying towards the end of last year because it was just too much.

I dealt with a rather traumatic event that I won’t describe here. I’ll just say that I haven’t gotten drunk in a year because of what happened.

In Feburary of 2016, a secondary partner I’d been dating for 3 months broke up with me. I forgot what breakups felt like, how much they hurt, since this was the first person I dated after my primary and I opened our marriage. (If you have no idea what this whole primary/secondary thing is, read this thing I wrote about it).

In January of 2017, I broke up with a secondary partner I’d been dating for 7 months. I still think she’s an amazing person and I care deeply for her, but there were just too many incompatibilities to make it work. The breakup was really messy, and drug out over months. It destroyed much of my self confidence, cratered my libido, and really shook my sense of self. I completely stopped my photography, even my creative side was broken.

I’m sure I’m forgetting other things too, but sufficed to say, my 2016 year of shit lasted a year and a half. It’s telling that I was working on another blog post on the flight to Berlin titled “Those Scars Run Deep.” I was only able to start moving past everything about a month ago.

JSConf EU, and the Node.js Collaborator’s Summit right before it, vastly accelerated the healing process and put all the remaining nails in the coffin of 2016 for me. It caused me to realize how connected all of this disjointed pain was, and how it all fueled how I was engaging with the JavaScript community and, indeed, how I was engaging with the world at large.

I cannot overstate how much of a debt of gratitude I owe to JSConf EU.

I am a leader in the JavaScript community. I’ve struggled to say those words ever since I became a leader back when…well…I actually don’t know when I became a leader. All of my interactions at JSConf EU and the Node.js Collaborator’s Summit gave me the knowledge, courage, and (this may sound strange) the humility to admit that yes, I am indeed a leader. I am a leader…and it’s time I acted like one. I now truly believe I can effect change for the better in our community, I now know how to do it, and I found the courage and drive to follow through on it. At JSConf EU, I taught some people the nitty gritty of how to effect change, how hard it is, and the price it exacts. In turn, I was reminded of how vitally important it is to do this work.

Turning inwards, I really reconnected with my queer self at JSConf EU. I didn’t hook up with any guys, not even a make out session (sad face), although I do confess there was this one bartender from Canada I met who was super cute and I may have flirted with him a bit…ahem…where was I?

Being bisexual is an odd experience, not straight, not gay. We exist in the in-between, and that creates unique challenges for our mental health. Since I’m married to someone of a different gender, it can be easy for this part of my identity to fade into the background, to be ignored. I was starting to ignore my own queerness, I realize, I was erasing myself. Now I’m holding space for my queerness again. I’m reengaging with this fundamental part of who I am, and I can’t even begin to describe how good it feels. The amazing culture and people at JSConf EU directly enabled this.

I made a difference in people’s lives at JSConf EU too. I showed people what it means to be good, to be authentic, to live your life as your truest self. Not that I was trying to do so, or even really conscious that I was doing so. The only reason I know this is because I had several people come up to me and tell me how much they appreciated my work in improving the community, how welcome I made them feel, and how much I inspired them. I don’t say this to brag, by the way. My brain has a hard time accepting praise, especially from strangers, and this is actually kinda hard for me to write. I feel weird doing it. So take this as me trying to work on that I guess.

I reconnected with so many friends I hadn’t seen in a long time. People who are amazing, inspiring, artistic, filled with love and beauty. It’s easy to say that tech people are boring, don’t engage with anything real and true, don’t lead examined lives. In San Francisco this does feel kinda true to me, and I think I started to distance myself from the tech community in favor of my more artsy friends as a result. I was wrong though, and JSConf EU reminded me of this. To my friends who where there: you are all amazing. Not just “amazing, for a tech person,” but “amazing, period.” My art friends could learn a thing or two.

So thank you Thomas, Matteo, Rachel, Dustin, Andy, Sarah, Sareh, Mikeal, Tracy, Karolina, Emily, Ben, Irina, Penny, William, Nick, Björn (plus partner and infant!), Gregor, Una, Franziska, James, Jan, Kevin, Ivana, Michelle, Lin, Flarnie, Ashley, Steve, and everyone else who I forgot to include in this list and feel terrible for forgetting. You are all amazing.

I especially want to call out and thank three people individually: Suz Hinton, Myles Borins, and Jessica Quynh.

Suz, as I’m sure you well know, you inspire so many people that I’m in awe of it. You bring so much love and wit and humor and intelligence to our community just by being you and doing what you do. I feel so fortunate I get to work with you, and even more fortunate that I get to call you my friend.

Myles, you’re my closest friend in all of JavaScript. You’ve been there for me many times, and you push me to be the better version of myself that you know me to be. I don’t know what I’d do without you.

Finally, Jessica, it seems so appropos, so idyllic, that my final moment in Berlin was spent with you, someone I met just one day before, intimately discussing art and life and love on the Oberbaum Bridge as we watched the sun rise over the Spree river. A moment frozen in time I won’t soon forget.

So thank you JSConf EU. I love you.

2017: I’m here, I’m ready, let’s do this.