The Monkey that lives with me recently got older. For a couple months now, I've been wanting to write about the ways she is wonderful and special and the impact she's had on my life; how her being herself has helped me learn to be myself. I was hoping to use her birthday as a motivator/deadline for this task, but I've missed that mark by a few weeks and now I'm the one getting older. This post is mostly about me, but I'm using cute pictures of my roommate as a way to alleviate my deep discomfort with having attention on me.

One of the biggest themes for me last year was raising my standards on who I choose to have in my life. Friendship and community are so much better when you can trust people to be straight with you and you feel safe to be open and be yourself. We are shaped by the people we spend our time with. I want to invest into people who are growing, who help me grow, and who want to grow together.

My intention for the new year is to have a more internal locus of control. I came up with that intention last night, not really sure what it means for me yet, I'll probably figure that out over time. The end result might be far from what that expression actually means, and I'm fine with that.

I've found that the "new year" (for me) that starts on my birthday is more significant to me than the new year that starts on Jan 1. I've never understood New Year’s resolutions; the date feels arbitrary, my birthday is a more noteworthy change of world state. Last year I "quit" vaping on my birthday, and kept it up for 8 months. This year I'm quitting, setting a minimum of 6 months before my next puff. It won't be easy but it will be worth it. And considering how many of my friends want to cut back, me quitting will also be helpful to them.

Some of my highlights from last year:

• I had a Monkey move in with me. I'd been living alone in my house for a few months, waiting until I found someone I was genuinely excited to live with, rather than e.g. finding a stranger by posting online. When I learned that Monkey needed a new place, I told her she should move in. It was an obvious choice for me, and I'm so grateful she took me up on it. I've learned so much from that woman, and it's been really interesting living with someone who is so similar to me in some ways (like many of the ways our ADHD shows up in our lives) and so different in others (let's just say she's a bit more prone to excitement than I am).
• I learned to lean into direct communication. I'm prioritizing connection with people who communicate directly with me and who receive direct communication well. One of my best friends, someone I've only known for about 6 months, is incredibly direct and open. It's been helpful having her as a model to follow as I'm developing these skills myself. She doesn't have a burn name, though, so I won't name her here. Ironically, her brother has entirely too many names that he goes by. I consider them both like family at this point, largely because of how well they communicate with me.
• I sent an identical text to about a dozen people, telling them I was breaking contact with them indefinitely, because I was deeply not ok with how their community was treating me. It's one of the best decisions I ever made, and it has opened up so much space for me to connect with people who I actually resonate with. I'm not interested in maintaining relationships with people who I believe have treated me poorly, and it's not my responsibility to convince them or anyone else that they have in fact treated me poorly. I get to set my standards for friendship. If they want to hear my reasoning they can ask; I will tell them.
• I got laid off. About a year ago, I left my job at Indeed to become an instructor for an intensive course on "smart contract" (ie, program that runs on a blockchain) development which I had recently taken as a student. Teaching motivated students about a subject I was passionate about, while also getting to continue learning myself, felt pretty close to my dream job. Due to rough conditions in the crypto market, the course was shut down. I stayed on for a few months doing Twitter marketing; I was glad to be getting paid well, but I struggled in this role and it was causing me a lot of stress, so I was sort of relieved to get laid off the week before Burning Man.

I took a few months off, with a focus on some inner work and giving myself a chance to reflect on what direction I want to go professionally. The role that I had recently, "educator in crypto", is not exactly a common role with many job openings, but I do feel pretty clear that it's what I want to do. I've started doing some contract work for my old company, writing the remainder of what I'll loosely call "a small book about the Ethereum virtual machine". It's work I'm excited about doing, and I think it will help me establish myself as a good explainer of things in the space.

• I went to Burning Man. This was my third time going, all three as part of a camp from Montana called Funky Town, but this was my first time having several close friends from Austin also going (although I did not go "with" them). They were starting a new camp, The Gong Spot, which has significant overlap with my regional burn community. I knew it was a priority for me to spend time with my Austin friends, and after the playa got a lil muddy (which you may have heard about) I packed a bag and stayed at The Gong Spot for the rest of the burn.

By the time we all got back to Austin, I think everyone just accepted that I’m part of camp now. I never asked to join and no one ever asked me if I wanted to join. I like to say that I adopted myself into the Gong Spot. The camp lead asked if I wanted to take on leadership for a component of camp, and I told him I wanted to be the "communications lead". It's a made up role that I'm very excited about. As a consequence of my struggles with executive functioning and ADHD, it's often extremely difficult for me to independently take ownership of things or see tasks through to completion without getting stuck or overwhelmed. So, I'm glad to have found a way to meaningfully contribute to my camp, even if the role itself is currently fairly amorphous.

I also found my burn name this year. I guess normally someone is supposed to "give" you one and you're supposed to have a good story behind it; mine just came to me as I sat alone in the Gong Spot tent, waiting for my friends to come back and reflecting on why the members of the camp, many of whom had never met me before, had been so quick to accept me. When the name came to me, it immediately felt right, in a way things rarely do for me. One of the challenges with picking a burn name is that many words have multiple meanings, and you don't know which meaning someone will hear when you say your name. Fortunately, all three of the meanings of my name are very applicable to me. Honestly, I think my burn name describes me better than Monkey's describes her, which is a high bar.

• I came out as poly by posting it on Facebook. I had been loosely considering myself as poly a few years ago, but then entered into a monogamous relationship with someone who was wrong for me and which made me forget my poly-hood. It took several months after the breakup to start remembering that part of my identity. I realized it was important to me to "come out", to make it known to everyone at once and to make it a decision I was no longer going to waver on. I'd been pondering how to make this announcement, and then I learned at like 10:30pm on October 11 that it was Coming Out Day, so I decided to come out. I think many people were happy for me, and a few people reached out to thank me. My brother expressed surprise that I would want to announce it so publicly, but for me it felt quite natural.

Someone posted a comment asking if I was queer, and suggesting that I should not have come out as a non-queer thing on an explicitly queer-focused day. I felt a bit attacked, reached out to a queer poly friend for their input and reassurance, and then I deleted the comment. I reached out to the author and we had a conversation in which I better understood her message, and I told her it felt important to me to own my mistake publicly. So, this is me doing that - I should not have come out as poly on that date; I could have done so any other day. It's tricky though, because I don't know if I ever would have done it if not for the impulse I had upon learning about the day, and I'm glad that I did it. So, I made a mistake, but I also forgive myself for it. Looking back at her comment now, it doesn’t seem as aggressive as I remember it, and I think it’s noteworthy that I felt so attacked by it in the moment; certainly something for me to work on.

• I had a housewarming party at my house. I gave it a name that I thought was very clever, due to its homophonic similarity with an event many of us had been at the prior weekend; I honestly don't know if anyone got the joke, which feels pretty on brand for me. For a few weeks before the party, I had been intent on doing various things in my home to decorate and otherwise prepare. I made basically no progress until my friends started getting involved. I had been feeling a bit hurt that they weren't helping more (not that I was making a clear ask for help), and then the day before and the day of the party they showed up big. I gave them a list of things I wanted done, and those things got done. I was especially annoyed by Monkey, who couldn't even remember the date of the party. Then, on the day of the party, she spent hours being my executive functioning task manager, telling me to relocate all the clutter from some area, and then reminding me about that task every time I would get sidetracked by something unrelated. I have many fond memories of Monkey, and this is one of my favorites.

The party itself was amazing and made me very happy. We danced and flowed and cuddled and massaged. I felt seen and valued by my friends, and I felt proud of creating a space where people felt safe to be themselves.

• I found a Ground Score. She helps me with my executive dysfunction, and this is by far the most comfortable I've felt asking for and receiving support with something that's been a major obstacle throughout my life. In the past couple weeks, thanks to her help, I've started focusing and doing work, feeling less overwhelmed in my space, and I can see real productivity on the horizon. She is a van person and I'm not sure how much longer she'll be in my life, which is definitely scary. I actually didn't realize how important she was to me until my attachment system went haywire after I (mis)heard that she was leaving town.

I recently said to her that I somehow manage to be concise while also using a lot of words, and she told me that wasn’t possible because the things are opposites. She impresses me with how much she pays attention and with her clarity of thought and her willingness to disagree with me. I asked ChatGPT “Is it possible to be concise while also using a lot of words?” and sent her the link. I was pleased that she read it and conceded she was wrong.

• I had a birthday party at my house. Having a party at this time of year which was explicitly a birthday party and not a holiday party was challenging. I have a lot of internal stories about, essentially, not really getting to have a birthday, because of its proximity to that day when everyone gives each other gifts.