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At the closing of the year
Oct. 31st, 2026 04:10 pm(LED candles. I do NOT have open flame near my books! What kind of an id10t do you think I am? Don't answer that - it's depressing.)
I journal a lot - longhand, very few stickers or doodles or whatnot. I've done this each year for the past 15 years, and on and off before that. I don't write every single day, but I've always written at least enough to fill one 360-page book. When I've had an especially poor year, I burn the journal as another way of symbolically closing out that year, leaving the ick behind, and moving forward. I have no journals after 2015. It has been a Decade of Suck.
2016 - I get an official autism diagnosis, which is a good thing because I know exactly why my brain is a bit weird. But like most others at my company, I'm on short hours by July because work for the company begins to dry up. Then while taking my first vacation in a decade, I badly sprain my ankle, which cuts my trip short. Then when I go to my doctor I learn that it's broken, not sprained, so come in for surgery. Mom gets ill VERY suddenly, goes to the hospital and eventually gets diagnosed with GBS, gets a pacemaker, gets intubated, and still nearly dies in the hospital. And fucking Trump gets elected.
2017 - I lose my job, I nearly lose my house, I find a job but it's a) out of my career field and b) a big pay cut. Not half, but I'm teetering on the knife-edge of insolvency. A 3-month job turns into over a year. It isn't easy to find a job and change careers while holding down another job with a lot of moving parts. Meanwhile, Mom's in various hospitals and long-term care facilities. And fucking Trump is still causing all kinds of jackanapery.
2018 - I finally find another job in my career field and at my more standard pay rate. It won't let me work from home despite a 41-mile commute each way, so I start staying in a Motel 6 two nights per week to reduce wear and tear on me. However, I also have to replace the roof on the new-to-me house. I do some calculation and realize that at my current pace I'll need to keep working for another 25 years to stay in my current house. I start looking around at contingency plans that don't involve me moving to an area that will depress me or living in a shack.
2019 - Early in the year, Mom finally comes back home, and Dad Has Adventures sourcing in-home caregivers, whom they do not communicate well with...so of course the caregivers don't perform to M&D's internal standards. In late summer, I end one contract and start another. It is back in my desired career field (yay!) and it lets us all work remotely after the first two weeks (yay!) but the cracks are beginning to show pretty early on - the boss is a yeller, and doesn't want us asking other departments for anything because "it will make us look bad". (Okay, but what happens when I need a wiki spun up, and that's very definitely IT's purview?) I put out feelers as I work over the Christmas period to get a whole lot of content scrubbed and moved.
2020 - I tentatively settle on a new plan for housing that will let me live in an area that I like, but pay a lower price. In January, I interview for and get a contract role at BigTechCo. During the interview, I ask about working remotely at least a few days per week, because of the distance. The interviewer - the boss of the team - says, "Oh yes, that won't be a problem at all". I get the job and start. Guess what? BigTechCo doesn't like contractors working from home. Three weeks after I start, Covid has hit with a vengeance and everyone is working from home. Mom's friends, who are all older like she is, aren't able to visit any more, which really takes the chop to her morale. Therapies also grind to a halt. My artist mother can't stand, can't feed herself, can't write her name…and can't get therapy to stand or start using her hands. I'm diagnosed with diabetes, and my doctor tells me to "avoid stress". Yeahno. (The nutritionist tells me to eat more often to keep my blood sugar at a more even level…which, yes, I can do that.)
2021 - The area that I had previously chosen for its lovely landscapes and lower rural prices is now full of people who left Big Crowded Metro Area during Covid to go live on one-acre-lots with space for them and their kids to be outside and not get sick. Land and housing prices are sky-high…so back to the drawing board. Mom isn't doing well mentally or emotionally let alone physically; Dad is losing his grip even though he's really really trying; everyone is falling apart. I fly down a few times (masking all the way ho ho ho) but it's a grim atmosphere.
2022 - I leave BigTechCo because they're making return-to-office noises and they want to put all the contractors into call-center buildings with zero access to any of the perqs like good varied and healthy food (3 meals a day), many sitting areas and outdoor spaces, and some amenities like a salon that I admittedly never used or thought of using. I an offered a new 100%-remote contract, only for it to fall through at the last second because a new VP gets in and shuts down any new hires. I find another job - a totally-remote FTE role with a household-name TechCo. Then, after years of dimming hopes and fights with Dad about ending her life on her terms, Mom passes. I can't be there for the memorial service because that's my first day at NuJob, which I really don't want to jeopardize after what happened with my previous contract. I did fly down to help Dad with post-death details and helped plan the memorial service.
2023 - Mostly dealing with the aftermath of Mom's death, the bouts of grief that wash over me like bad-tempered thunderstorms. I run into the same BS at this new job that I've run into with so many other jobs, which is being treated less like a tech writer and more like a publisher: just take the first draft, clean it up, then publish it, don't ask questions or try to clarify anything or, you know, actually make the documentation better for the users. But fuck it, I'm getting paid, and paid rather nicely compared to my previous high-income-mark, and my commute is measured in feet. And while a handful of engineers make my teeth itch, I like and work well with several people on my team. After much research and pondering, I finally settle on my new home country. It's a wrench to be planning to leave the US, but I don't want to work until I drop in my traces, either. I get my residency visa sticker in November. I feel like I've made progress, but I spent so much of the year in a mental and emotional fog. My brother and his wife move to Hawaii. And in December, two of my cats Ari and Amy are both diagnosed with cancer.
2024 - I get my Mexican residency card, I plan my initial move down, I get all my initial adminstuff set up. Ari isn't responding to her cancer treatment. I really want her to be well enough to make the move with the rest of the household, but the cancer is really aggressive. She finally passes in late September, in a veterinary oncology office less than a mile from the pet store where I adopted her and her sister (who does make the trip to Mexico with me). The vets know that I'm leaving the country soon, so they rush her cremation to get her ashes to me well before I'm set to leave the country. Initially, Dad was going to help me with the drive down, but he can't find his remaining cat Fred who's hiding so that he doesn't have to go to the V-E-T. My brother eventually takes my Dad's place - he meets me at the US/Mexico border and drives with me (and my four cats, Justin riding shotgun as much as he can) to the Mexican central highlands. And as I'm settling into my new home in the final months of 2024, fucking Trump gets elected again.
2025 - Justin does not love Queretaro. Specifically, the dust. His breathing problems resume, like they did seasonally in Seattle for 5 years, but even with his same antibiotic that he got in the US, he can't shake it - it keeps coming right back. Toward the end of 2025, he'd lost a lot of weight. I did adopt Florian and Catlin in September, hoping that Justin would be well enough to usher in one more pair of kittens to the household. It sort of worked. Dad finally moves to Hawaii early in the year. He has many upset days in late 2024 dealing with the realtor, who wants to paint over the whole house in Millenial Grey for the resale. Mom had painted so many things in that house - the laundry room frescos, the entryway ceiling, the dining room, the decorative scrollwork on the beams in the living room, the bas-relief bamboo in their bedroom. There's also the kitchen that they redid together, and the master bathroom with its penny floor. It's a jolt to know that all of that will go away - the largest visible reminders of Mom. I take videos of the entire house, mostly to help my brother and I decide what bits of decor and furniture we want. I don't want much - just some sample boards and sketches from Mom's studio. (The giant ceramic cats might have been nice, but finding a place for them and then avoiding tripping over them would have been a nightmare.) The rental house is too small for me and all of my stuff. I'm paying a premium for a storage space for several pieces of furniture and assorted boxes of things. I'm in a high-altitude desert, so dust gets into EVERYTHING. And its cost of living is one of the highest in all of Latin America. I knew that this particular city wouldn't be my forever-home when I first planned to move here, but it's where my immigration facilitator was, and it's going to be easier to scout for my forever-home when I'm actually living in the country. I have to make several trips back up to the US for one thing or another: my computer dies and I have to get a new one and Lenovo ships different models to Mexico as compared to the US; I have to finish emptying my PNW storage unit; I have to scuffle with the DOL (DML to most other USians); I make a final visit to my neurologist in the US while I'm scouting for a new one in Mexico; I have to physically go to my old mortgage bank because a check that they claim to have sent me keeps disappearing. That August, I finally plan a trip to Portland for myself as a treat: Powells (where I drop 1K), the zoo, the rose garden. (It's a very nice trip. Especially the bookstore! Fun fact, you can bring books into Mexico and not pay import taxes on them.) I find a larger rental house in Mexico that costs just under what my smaller-rental and the storage unit cost per month, so I move across town. Unfortunately, Trump and his minions keep fucking about, with talks of camps for all kinds of people…basically anyone who aren't straight, neurotypical, and white. I register to vote as a US expat, and start helping friends and friends of friends plan to get out of the US. I'm trying to focus on my queer and neurodivergent friends first, and of course, it's not easy to find countries that will accept the highest-impaired or lowest-income folks.
2026 - In late January, I visit a monarch sanctuary in Michoacan. This is my first trip to Morelia, and so far I'm happy with what I'm seeing: it's a city, but it's not a boomtown like Queretaro. It has some US chains, and several Mexican chains that I've come to rely on, as well as a huge open-air market on the weekends. There's more green on the hills for more of the year, too, which I've sorely missed. I plan more trips, both to learn more about the area and to be in the area for more seasons during the year. (May is nasty-hot in Mexico, regardless of which state you're in or what altitude you're at.) In late February, I also learn that I spent too many days visiting the US in 2025 to qualify for my expat income tax credit, so I have a 3K US tax bill. In March I try rereading a book that I've read at least 4 times, and I can't keep the plot in my mind to finish it. Also in March, the movie adaptation of Project Hail Mary releases. However, while it is playing in Mexico City, it's nowhere to be found in my current city. I don't want to schlep all that way just to see the movie in Lie-MAX (nor do I want to fly across the Atlantic for -=any=- movie), so I wait until it's finally out on Amazon Prime in July. JULY. (And don't get me started about the 4K Ultra BluRay steelbook in early October.) It has been fun watching bookFandom and movieFandom collide and mix, though! I feel like a fashionably-late party guest who's early enough that the buffet is still being constantly refreshed.
I've decided that I'm not burning my 2026 journal. It hasn't been a perfect year, but for the first time in a decade, I've experienced far more positive things than negative. (Even including The Outage.)
