I’m going to preface this post with this, 2022 sucked.

Now, I don’t want to completely say every part of the year was bad, because that would be untrue, but largely it was a rough year.

On the personal front, we had a miscarriage, my MIL got diagnosed with Stage IV pancreatic cancer, we lost our beloved Bentley (golden retriever), and we’ve had nothing but back-to-back problems with appliance and other home things.

Our miscarriage was hard, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. As many of you probably know, we have had a very rough 5 years of fertility issues, taking nearly 3 years to conceive Charlie, and then losing a pregnancy as well. We’re stuck in a place where we’re not sure if we want to try again or not, not really being willing to go through all of the possible pain of another miscarriage (or worse). I truly thought I was going to lose my wife, it was extremely scary.

Towards the end of the year, my Mother In Law informed us that she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She’s a wonderful human being who has spent the last 15 years waiting hand and foot on my FIL, basically giving her entire self to him with very little appreciation. And now, after saving for retirement her entire life dreaming of a great retirement, just a few years after she retires, she gets this news. Life is truly unfair.

So now, my wife, Charlie, and I are back and forth between our city and theirs (2 hours) taking care of them while Mary undergoes chemotherapy. It’s exhausting. It’s hard on us. It’s hard on Charlie. Coming off the heels of our miscarriage, barely recovering emotionally and physically from that, here we are dealing with another family emergency. We can’t put a timeline to it, we can’t put an end date to the back and forth, we can’t make larger decisions of permanently moving because we don’t know how long this new reality will last. We can’t plan vacations, we can’t plan alone time as a couple, we’re often separated as a family due to home and care requirements. It’s tough. There’s answers to all of this, but it’s going to take time to sort out and figure out.

Bentley. Oh Bentley. 7 months later and I’m still broken hearted. I miss you buddy. There was something unbelievably special about you. You and Coco helped me through my divorce, you brought so much joy and love to Missy, you had a wonderful, kind soul that I know we’ll never have again.

My wife joked often that Bentley was her soul mate and I am her partner, and that was true.

Work is bad. That’s all I have on the subject.

Positive

I want to try and focus a moment on the positive through all this negativity. Charlie has been a complete joy for us. Has he been hard at times, of course, he’s a toddler. But man, he’s so cool. Watching the lights come on, seeing him start to understand more and more of the world, building a tighter bond with him through all of the struggle, it’s been so cool.

2023?

I don’t know what to expect out of this year, but I have some hopes. I want to spend so much of my energy on my family, trying to keep us together and strong. I want to further understand my ADHD diagnosis and work on my health, hopefully dropping that 20lbs that’s been sticking around from 2020. I also hope to find myself in a new position at work, getting me out from under a director who lacks any form of human empathy.

My business partner and I do plan on putting a lot of effort behind our Indoor Air Quality platform this year, hoping to at least be in development or maybe even early production runs of custom PCBs by EOY.

Here’s to a less shitty 2023.