I haven't blogged for some time here, and what better way to review the reasons while doing a recap of the rest of the year as well? In the past, I've had my issues with everyone doing this – it's just another day or month, isn't it artificial enough to put up things for review? Isn't this creating more pressure with all the resolutions and "lost" chances/opportunities, more so than the closure it might bring?
Sure, but what's the alternative? There might be better times to take stock of what you have done. But will you pick such a time or not do it at all because it still isn't perfect? Everyone also doing the same seemingly futile gestures at least means you're part of an imperfect community…
So let's do this.
Trigger warnings: Physical and mental health, death, AI.
How it started #
I'll be perfectly honest, 2025 started in a horrible way.
No, not because of global politics.
Not because I was basically without a project at my job and would likely be pressured into applying and learning for tasks I don't give a fig's leaf about (i.e. devops).
Because of a tooth.
In the early hours of the new year, something ached. After checking it, it seemed that a solid chunk of a molar was missing. I spent the night twisting and turning around, there might have been a good deal of whimpering involved. There's a good deal of phobia involved here – I've had worse medical procedures or potential diagnoses that cause me less lack of sleep.
Of course, as with any phobic interlude, things turn out less bad than they appear. It wasn't easy to get to a dentist on the first day of the year, it being a public holiday in Germany, but I managed to find someone. And while at first they made it sound like I might need a root canal or something like that – potentially even something not covered by insurance – in the end it was just a filling that broke off.
So, nothing really great, but not as bad as it looked at first – would this be a pattern for the rest of the year?
Health #
While we're at it, let's stick with this general theme. Let's start with the worst thing: 2025 I'm now officially in my "late forties". Yikes.
There was a pattern evolving: Every doctor's visit resulted in some unrelated health issue being diagnosed. Back in 2024, I had a somewhat routing ear check up, but reports of me snoring a bit resulted in me having to get a sleep checkup. And I failed sleeping?!? So say hello to a CPAP machine.
I won't get into the details of my urologist visit, but let's just say that what started slightly annoying could've turned into something a lot more dangerous. It didn't in the end, but I had to wait a few months to find that out.
Then getting checked up for a new prescription for contact lenses led to me having to wear glasses for a while exclusively due to some cornea damage and infection.
I was a bit reluctant to schedule doctor's visits after all that…
Final Status #
It's okay, really.
- I'm not good with the CPAP machine, but I don't have any noticable sleep issues and barely made it into the eligible bracket anyways. Has to be monitored in 2026.
- Being "forced" to wear glasses gave me a new-found appreciation for them. I bought some quite expensive new ones, and for the first time in 30 years, I'm mostly spectacular now.
- Weight & general fitness could be better, but no back issues due to improving my desk-related ergonomics and sitting/standing/walking behavior.
- Got a decent bill of dental health, and started on some work that needed to be done but was phobia-poned too long.
- I might have ADHD. This ruins my insanely average guy street cred.
Work #
I'm currently working as a "software consultant". No, I'm not doing high level evaluations or improvement proposals, in perfect German Business Denglish this just means I'm a gun for hire, but actually work for my money.
This tradeoff between more money working freelance and security worked out well for me this year, as the job situation here isn't too good. My company noticed this already last year, so right after my tooth escapade, I was supposed to use a business trip where we all attended an international New Year event to pitch myself for a new position.
I got it, but at the same time also a regular development job. We weren't unsure how to proceed, so we started out with a 80/20% deal and adapt accordingly.
Good that we did that. The new position is still being built up, so I wouldn't be able to fill out a whole week anyway, and while the other position often goes a bit beyond the 80%, it's still not startup- or gamedev-level overtime.
This means I'm doing a good web dev job (React, boo! Golang, yay!), and something a bit more managerial and sales oriented. The latter part would be much more interesting if it didn't stall at this entry level, but that's not in my hand.
I'm still quite worried about the software development industry. We haven't tackled the horrible enshittification of work organisation and software architecture, commercial desktop programming is mostly dead, and now we get the stochastic outsourcing threat – and whether that actually works or not is immaterial when it comes to C-level drones making bold decisions.
Finances #
Nope. Won't tell, not urgent enough, too revelatory, too embarrassed.
Does moving belong to this? Then, okay, we're moving to a bigger place, my working from home situation will improve by a lot.
Maybe the wrong time to get back onto the hipster minimalism trend…
Hobbies #
I might get into this deeper in some follow-up posts, so let's just give a quick overview:
- Running three RPG groups, two IRL, one online. A lot of fun.
- Can't believe the latter is now in a new campaign, but still uses Pathfinder.
- Bought some retrocomputing stuff, but not using it.
- Barely got on my bike at all.
- Still too much TV & movie procrastination, but I did manage to read more books.
- Managed to publish two small "game jam" RPG things, but nothing bigger.
Other people & relationships #
This is where it gets heavy. My partner's mom suddenly had a major health crisis this year, almost completely out of the blue. We had the funeral just a few weeks ago.
I was present in the home city of my partner for a lot of this, starting when their mom had to stay in the hospital, and then at home in what amounted to hospice care.
I've rarely had weeks where time seemed so uncertain. Days that went past by you, weeks that stretched out. Trying to make as much quality time as possible, but then waiting for… Well, a resolution.
Yet, all throughout this, so many people connecting or trying to. My own family was rather small, and got smaller in recent decades. Christmas holidays the past few years were three people. Being a private person, that was enough, and I enjoyed it a lot – but my partner's mom was the polar opposite. She really worked on those relationships, making a schedule for keeping in touch, trying to create connections between her circles, especially for the ones being a bit lonely.
We heard a lot of stories when she was ill and… after that. A niece that had to defend her vegetarianism against her part-time-butcher parents – and who got a vegetarian cookbook for a teenage birthday from her not that much older aunt. A good friend who got over changing living situations after being "dragged" into a theater subscription. Half a school class still turning up after 50 years.
It both emphasized the loss and made us happy to see the impact.
So, this is the main reason why I haven't posted that much recently. If blogging right now felt a bit more natural, it probably could've helped to write bits and pieces of this during the last two months. But not yet. I remember being at the desk in my partner's parent's apartment, doing work. Having scrum meetings. Friggin' talking about kitchen cabinets with a contractor.
Weird, man.
Resolutions #
The events of the last part of 2025 will catch up with me, for sure. Some change will arise out of this. So, yet another "unnatural" point for reflection and review, but I'm certain it will be interesting to look back at this post in a few weeks or months.
A few "socials"-related outcomes already seem apparent. I wasn't on Mastodon/Fediverse at all in the last months. And to be honest, I feel a bit relieved. It was a good venue for some interaction – a lot better than the mostly one-sided posting I had on Twitter. But to be honest, a lot of that was "hashtag"-oriented – talking to people about a common interest or specific topic. I might know these people, but there wasn't a good personal connection there. But I was still very much looking for those replies, checking my "feed" a lot.
It's not healthy that way. If I go back there, I need a better way to interact with both the system and the people. Making more personal connections. Filtering better or not interacting with people/topics that need to be filtered (I already turned off "boosts" 18 months ago and never looked back)
But writing this, I notice that I do like blogging. So I will try to improve my post count in 2026. Maybe not going for a good length, but not just doing "mandatory" monthly posts for statistics alone.
I need to find a place or communication style for more personal interaction, though.
And moving made some other things apparent: I'm unhappy with my finances, and own too much. I'm not quite sure how the first thing happened, I don't have any really bad habits, but just like weight gain it just accumulates over the years.
Improving that might not mean investing more or other technical solutions, but also being more mindful or simply content. I always had this vision of a more frugal, minimalistic or bohemian lifestyle, with the reason being mostly about the ability to improvise, rising to the occasion, make do with what I've got. But there is also an undercurrent of enviousness, or a slight form of "retail therapy". I'm not expecting a complete change in personality during 2026, but some progress can be achieved.
That also means letting go of hobbies I'm not working on:
- Physical retrocomputing. I was more into the PC era than the 8 bit one, but that just means I can do even more with just software, not building beige boxes right out of 1998. Let's get rid of those towers.
- LARPing. I haven't attended one for years. I really liked the people there, but I've been aging out of it a bit, and it's another thing where you need to commit or quit.
- Certain kind of programming side projects. I want to do so much, but choice paralysis is really hard here. So instead of picking one of many documents or code repositories, I'll rather surf the 'net. Maybe I need to make the choices totally randomly, but I need to make 'em.
And, well, obviously get a bit healthier. New apartment has some good opportunities to at least get into some activities a bit quicker, and difficulties getting over that first threshold seems a big quirk of mine. We'll see whether that's enough in a few months. I'm quite positive here, for a change And finally, but most nebulously: Find a way to make the world a better place. It's bad out there. I can't do much, but every single bit counts.
Great. I just wrote two all-time New Years tropes about health and humanity. Better stop now.
Whether 2025 was a good or bad year for you, I sincerely hope 2026 will end better!