Today, I’m turning 37.

Last year, I skipped my 36th birthday post.

I’m not really sure why I chose to skip writing that post.

After re-reading what I wrote when I turned 35, it has become clear to me that I am now a very busy person. That may be what forced my hand to skip my annual reflection last year. Bummer! Oh well. Lot’s to catch up on!

Let’s get started. The past two years have been very challenging. Some highlights:

• At work, I had some high profile product launches. That was fun! But also, incredibly challenging. I started managing a team of software engineers. That is not easy, and I feel like it’s only going to become more difficult as time goes on. Growth!
• I have an elder cat and an elder dog. Having both aging into their senior years has been emotionally and financially difficult
• I became an uncle! I’ll talk more about this later, but this has been the single-most important thing in my life lately. I couldn’t be more proud of my brother. I promise to be the best uncle I can be 🙂
• Lately, I’ve taken up a new hobby. Pottery! I’ve made a lot of pottery lately. I plan to make even more this year! Easily one of the most fun hobbies I could recommend. It gets you off your phone and I made a lot of new friends at the studio.
• Travels: Lots of revisits to favorite spots: Upstate New York, Las Vegas, Austin, San Francisco (first time visiting!). I had hoped for an international trip in 2024 but that didn’t pan out, and the cards didn’t land for 2025 either. Fingers crossed I can squeeze in some international travel this year
• I didn’t write as much as I had hoped for since I turned 35. That’s not great. That’s on me
• I’m still learning Korean! Duolingo has been helpful. Noji has been more helpful! Flashcards are the best.

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Welp, I’m in my middle age now.

In my twenties, I had very high expectations for my 30s: a mortgaged home, maybe some children, and an esteemed career. In my head, I had this vision that turning 37 would signal the entryway for a comfortable 40s. Now, retirement feels further than ever before. I have no kids. My grandparents are in the final chapter of their life. Peering down the road, I can tell that entering my 40s will be very rough if nothing improves in the US (inflation is a bitch and real estate markets are ass). I feel a little bit like I’m fighting an uphill battle.

I became an uncle in 2024, and I couldn’t be happier about that. It’s exciting, but long-distance uncle’ing is tough. I miss my nephew often 🙁

Now that I’m an uncle, all I can think about is what it would be like to become a father myself. I finally feel ready to broach fatherhood (should it present itself). I deeply want to become the father mine never was. There’s some degree of fear inside me that I’ll never get that opportunity. There’s also a degree of fear that I will get that opportunity. All I know is that this may be the biggest catalyst for me before I turn 40.

I made a lot of new friends over the past couple of years. This was kind of hard to do in a post-pandemic world. I took it upon myself to be more engaging in public with people. I took effort to walk without headphones in. I took up new hobbies (pottery!).

This was how I felt before pottery:

I’ve taken a big step back from spending time on consoles gaming. Largely a positive gain I think! This has freed me up to spend more time in the pottery studio, writing, reading, and spending quality time catching up on shows. I mean how else am I going to burn down my ever-growing list of movies to watch? These movies are not going to watch themselves.

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A few goals for myself this year:

1. Spend more time with my nephew. Spend more time with my brothers and family.
2. Stop obsessing over hedonism, it’s okay to not feel good about the world. It’s beyond my control.
3. Maybe I just need another tattoo 😏
4. Buy that motorcycle
5. Continue learning Korean. 한국어는 어렵습니다! 😅