It's surreal to think that it's been ten years since I last published anything on this site. To be honest, it feels like both an instant and an eternity. As I aspire to begin writing regularly again after so many years, it seems like a good time to reflect on where I've been and where I am now, if only to get it straight in my own mind.

Ten years ago, I joined the team at CareZone. A group of smart, kind, and welcoming people. I travelled to Seattle regularly and truly loved being able to split my time between the quiet Midwest and the rainy coastal city. I wrote some of the best code of my life there and was very proud of what I was able to contribute. It was a great time in my life, and I look back on it fondly.

Five years later, that company was acquired by Walmart. I went from working for a small startup to an unfathomably large company. For a while, at least, it wasn’t much of a change: same team, same app, same goal of making health care easier for everyone. There was no more travel budget, but the work was alright, and Walmart was adamant about supporting remote workers both before and after the pandemic. As time went on, things changed, as they always do, and more and more CareZone people left. The original CareZone app we had spent a year rebranding and migrating to Walmart’s infrastructure as Walmart Wellness was abruptly “sunsetted.” Those original team members still around and I transitioned to building out the Walmart mobile pharmacy experience. I was eventually asked to help get the behind-schedule in-store vision app cleaned up and back on track, and I was moved to a completely new team. While I had a great new manager and worked with a wonderfully diverse and talented group of people, I began to feel isolated and unfulfilled. Eventually, the depression that I had struggled with when I was younger returned.

After around five years at Walmart, in the spring of 2024, the company informed its employees that it was closing several software development offices and requiring all remote employees to relocate to the Bay Area hub. They were fairly generous, and I was given the choice of a relocation package or a severance package. For a number of reasons, I chose the latter: the cost-of-living increase, the pain of moving across the country in a very tight timeline, and my parents’ failing health, to name a few. I don't regret the decision, but it was one of the first risky opportunities I've turned down in my career, and that still stings a bit. As I sit here looking out at the backyard covered with snow and ice, the idea of living in the Northern California climate is not unappealing (not that I’d likely have been able to afford a backyard anywhere near the offices out west).

Six weeks after my last day at Walmart, my father died.

We had always had a complicated, sometimes adversarial, relationship. We were never terribly close and often went long periods without much contact. We eventually had a pretty serious falling out, and I didn’t speak with either of my parents for a couple of years. We had since patched things up, mostly, in the time before his death, and for that I’m very thankful.

Almost immediately, I was saddled with the task of picking up the pieces he left behind. That led to several months of stress and soul-crushing effort to get everything documented and set up so that I could help my mother get care and keep the lights on when she wasn’t in the hospital or rehab. On top of everything else, shortly after my dad’s passing, I also lost my cat—a dear little friend who had been a constant companion as I worked from home for the last fifteen years. Her death affected me far more than I was prepared for and made those dark days even darker. This was not a great time in my life.

Now it's a little more than a year later, things have settled down a bit, and I find myself unsure of what's next. The world has changed a great deal in just a short time, as have I. My identity feels less secure. Where I had previously been (maybe too) confident, I now have more questions. One thing I do know is that I have an opportunity to take stock of where I’ve been and reassess my goals. To challenge myself and learn new things again. A return to a happier and more exploratory time in my life and maybe the start of something new.

Here's hoping.