A look back and a look forward

Last night closed the books on an enduring year that centered around two major life events: my wife Angela discovering she has early stage rheumatoid arthritis, and our decision to buy an apartment. While the former was most definitely negative and the later positive, both were scary and loaded with the weight of heavily influencing our future.

Angela’s arthritis made us pause on life a bit while she struggled with pain and swelling, and then while she started 7 months of steroid treatment, and other medicines that required her to weigh choices of side effects she’d put up with. Rheumatoid arthritis is scary because, while it can be managed, it is likely life-long. Angela endured the way she knows how — focusing internally, cooking, exercising and training more. And the good news is, her symptoms are mostly under control and in 2016 she’ll try weining herself entirely off medication entirely. We’re very hopeful.

Buying an apartment was a whole different type of struggle. New York real estate is all about compromises — loving things you can’t afford, losing bids on things you really wanted, grudgingly accepting trade offs, acting fast and being out of your comfort zone the whole time. We ultimately found a place we liked and felt confident enough in, and closed the year moving into the first apartment we can call our own. It’s my nature to torture myself rethinking decisions, but I’m excited as we begin to shape it into our own home in Park Slope.

So in a lot of ways, 2016 feels like a reset. New home, better health, fresh outlook. A good year to focus on the things that ground me and keep me healthy. More exercise, more writing. I’d like to learn more — take classes, go to talks. And take it a step farther — pursue more ideas, make more things. All stuff that seemed to be put on hold this year while we got life back on track. Part of that is starting a new blog that I hope I’ll write to more often. It will be hosted on Medium (goodbye Blogger), and eventually at the domain ConstantIteration.com (purchased but not set up). This is the first post, the rest will probably be more about technology than personal reflections.

I’m excited for 2016. Here’s hoping it’s a happy and healthy one for all of us. See you soon.