• 2017 in Reflection

    For many people, myself included, 2017 has been an exhausting year.

    I started off the year in a haze of anxiety and fear over the US election — a haze that only really stopped when I very intentionally stepped back from social media for a little while and tried to give myself some space. I donated when I could, and voted in my local elections, but otherwise feel like I didn't give enough or do enough to counteract all of the awfulness going on in my country. I've felt powerless and paralyzed. In 2018, I want to find sustainable ways to empower myself and my communities.

    Improving my mental health was a focus of 2017. I was, quite honestly, a disaster in the beginning of the year. I experienced multiple panic attacks. After a significant amount of time and effort, I was finally able to see a psychiatrist. (Seriously y'all, why is it so hard?) For most of my life I've been opposed to medication (for myself, not others), but my anxiety meds have made a world of difference for me. My stress and anxiety are manageable, and actually reflective of reality, rather than high-key all the time for no reason. I feel like going out and being social again. I haven't had any more panic attacks. It took a lot of work, but getting the mental health support I needed was worth it.

    My family went through a lot of pain and strife this year, which took up a great amount of mental and financial resources. I think — hope? — it brought us closer together, and we made it through the year intact. I'm considering that a success. I hope next year brings some much deserved peace and prosperity to my family.

    Work was pretty intense this year. I took on a lot more responsibility than I thought myself capable of handling. In a lot of ways, I was right — I made a lot of mistakes this year. I got mired in details that didn't matter as much as the bigger picture. I learned and grew quite a bit. I led a WordPress release and it actually went pretty well. I learned a lot about my work habits (and my brain) that I'll be able to put to good use next year. I'm starting out 2018 with a professional coach, to help keep myself on track and focused, and to learn even more about how I can make the best use of my skills. Better late than never, eh?

    A lot of people supported me this year:

    • My partner Kelly, who was with me every step of the way. Thanks for always supporting me, cheering me on, and being patient with me despite many of this year's hurdles. Thanks for listening to me rant, and helping me deal with the enormous work and family stress I was under this year. I hope I can always be as good a partner for you as you've been for me. 
    • My older brother Chris, who saw our family through some incredibly tough times this year. Thanks for your composure, your leadership, and for making sure our family got through the year with a roof over everyone's heads. This year would have been a whole lot harder without you.
    • My coworker and friend Tammie, who was my cheerleader the whole year. Thanks for the check-ins, the support and confidence, and for checking my work to make sure I was showing my best.
    • My team lead Josepha, who helped me through many difficult situations and worked hard to find the best way to support me. Thanks for listening, and for keeping me on-track.
    • My WordPress release buddies Weston and Jeff. I couldn't have made it through the year without either of you. We did it together.
    • All my wonderful internet friends. I love you all ❤️
    • My therapist. Paying someone for professional emotional labor is the shit, y'all. A++ would recommend.

    2017 was hard. Damn hard. I hope that it's made me stronger, more resilient, and a better friend, coworker, and partner.

    Here's to 2018.

  • WordPress 3.9 “Smith” released today

    WordPress 3.9 “Smith” was launched this afternoon. It’s the fifth release I’ve contributed to. The cycle focused a lot on improving the content and media editing experience within the WordPress admin, along with adding a redesigned theme browser for installing new themes, and a new way to add widgets to your site via the Customizer. (Post Status has a nice recap of the user-facing features) It was an incredibly feature-rich release that I’ve personally been looking forward to for a while.

    Along with 266 other contributors this cycle, I:

    • Worked on refining the design of the playlist settings panel
    • Helped Gregory Cornelius and Andrew Ozz with the UI and UX around the various gallery and image editing improvements
    • Helped redesign a lot of the various TinyMCE modals along with Janneke Van Dorpe and Andrew Ozz
    • Along with Ben Dunkle, added a ton of new icons to Dashicons, the WordPress admin icon font, including an entire suite of of media icons to replace the old “crystal” icon set
    • Designed the 3.9 “About” page along with Kelly Dwan
    • Designed the 3.9 release post on WordPress.org

    You can see all of the new icons we’ve added to Dashicons during this release, and check out the 3.9 release post here.

    Thanks to all of the contributors this cycle, especially the release leads Andrew Nacin and Mike Schroder, and feature developers Andrew Ozz, Gregory Cornelius, and Scott Taylor. 3.9 was a good one. :)