31st
2008: My Year in Review
2008. “The best of times, the worst of times,” to quote Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan paraphrasing Dickens. To inaugurate my new blog, I thought I’d take a backward look at the last 364 days.
Harper Grace Harred born January 27, 2008. Her arrival defined my year, and I imagine the rest of my life. Nothing prepared me for the daily joy of watching her grow up, or the grief of knowing that each milestone marks the end of something unique.
Left California. I grew up in California, which is saying a lot because I moved there on my 27th birthday. It was in California that I found my first real job, discovered that I could do things I never thought possible, and fell in love with my wife. It will always be my home.
I miss it a lot, but it was time to leave.
Moved to Texas. I was born in Texas, lived there until I was seven, and swore I’d never move back there. One of the many lessons of my early thirties is to never, ever swear you won’t do something.
Austin has a lot to recommend it. Good food, a shrinking but still vibrant music scene, lots of funky artists, and the best movie theatre in the country. Not only that, but you can afford a house without holding three jobs, which is important to me as I look toward a more creative future.
Lost 15 pounds. I’d picked up some baby weight (fear of the unknown is a problem for stress eaters). I gave up my weekly pub lunch, ate more fruit, and ran five days a week. The weight melted off quickly.
Bought a house. So what if I bought at the peak of the real estate bubble? The total cost of the house would be a rounding error in San Francisco.
Gained 15 pounds. Did I mention I’m a stress eater? Getting evicted from the apartment in Berkeley, moving cross country and buying a house with no guarantee of a job, and a global economic collapse were all the excuses I needed to eat more burritos.
Strangetastic. When I was in school, I always told people I planned to be a writer because I couldn’t think of a name for what I wanted to do. I didn’t quite want to write novels or plays, and I didn’t quite want to be an actor or a director. I would have described my dream job as “storyteller,” but that conjures an image of a loquacious hobo.
This year, I finally figured out that the internet had blurred all of the boundaries enough that it didn’t matter anymore, so I started a project at my website strangetastic.com. It’s meant to be a work-in-progress, so as long as I meet my weekly deadlines, then I never have to worry about its state of completion.
Work. I gave up my management position in favor of a new role as an AdWords and Google Analytics specialist. I’m proud of the work I did as a manager, but during my paternity leave (best five weeks ever) I realized that I didn’t care for it. I hated the meetings, the constant need to watch what I said and to whom I said it, and the prospect of doing the things necessary to climb to the next rung.
My new job isn’t perfect, but it gives me what I need for now.
Volunteered for Obama. Like a lot of people my age, Barack Obama was the first presidential candidate that ever inspired us. Especially in the primaries, he said the things I’d hoped all my life to hear from a president my entire adult life. I believed, and still hope, that he is the antidote to the poison of the last decade.
That hope, combined with a new found need to save the world for my daughter, led me to volunteer for a presidential campaign for the first time. With a baby in the house and a full time job, my ability to help was limited, but I put in some time doing phone calls and I was amazed at how happy people were to hear from a political campaign.
I spent election night 2008 watching returns with Harper asleep on my lap, but I’m afraid I woke her up when they announced the winner.
One Year Anniversary. We celebrated our first anniversary in April, and its safe to say that marriage did not conform to my expectations. Actually, I honestly can’t remember what I expected. We’d only been married a few weeks when we found out about Harper, and any plans we had fell by the wayside.
It turned out much better than I could have imagined, and every other item in this list is a direct result of being with Belinda.
