September 9th (and the days around it) has, for better or worse, become an important day for me. I got married on September 9th, 2009. I found out later that September 9th was my first ex-boyfriend’s birthday. I started working for Brad Larson two years ago on September 8th. And this year I am completing an important contract on September 9th. It seems fitting.

I feel like I have accomplished nothing of importance over the last year.

I am not blaming anyone besides myself for this. I don’t know what’s wrong. I don’t know if I have been suffering from depression, which has prevented me from fully engaging in anything. I don’t know if I am trying to do too many side projects and am getting distracted with blog posts and conference talks and tech books. I don’t know if I jumped into the deep end too early and I haven’t learned to deal or cope with things yet. I don’t know.

I just know that a year ago when I looked back on everything I did in the year I worked for Brad I was really proud of what I had accomplished and the person that I was becoming and I honestly can’t say that about myself right now. This was a wasted year.

I am tired of feeling like nothing I do matters. I’m tired of being a cog in a system and not seeing anything I work on ever get completed because it eventually gets passed on to someone else and I never see it again and feel no ownership of it. I am tired of feeling like I am chasing after the wrong things. I am tired of not saving enough of my money because I am buying stuff to fill the empty, meaningless void in my soul.

I want to do something important and significant. I want to do work I am proud of. I don’t want to look at code I wrote a year ago and go “Damn! I used to be smart. What the fuck happened??”

I need a change. I don’t know how I am going to do this or what I am going to do, but I do not want to keep living this way. I am tired of this. I want to make something that matters. I want to push myself to be more than I am right now. I do not want another wasted year. I want to look back on September 9th, 2017, and go “This was a good year.”

I am putting this year behind me. Nothing is irreparably broken. It sometimes takes a lot of time and patience to fix things that are broken. It takes some time to backtrack and get back on the right path when you’re lost. It’s easy to give up and walk away. I am not going to do that. I am going to find something that matters to me and I am going to do it. I am going to hold onto that and keep it close and use it to motivate me to keep pushing. Because I don’t want to live like this anymore and I don’t want another wasted year.