Hey, friend!

2023.

I'm seeing a lot of people on Twitter talk about how 2023 kicked everyone's butts. I tried to think a bit this morning about whether it kicked mine, too.

I'm definitely tired. Drained. Greyer at the temples than I was in 2022. Having to be even more intentional to drink water, get sleep, work out.

But... I don't know if I would say it kicked my ass. Here's my quick reflection, in little bites:

Tighten
Summer 2022 to summer 2023 was the hardest time in the history of the company. So yah, many of my greys came from that time. Taking over as CEO was both incredibly empowering that I could bring us out of this hard time, and also incredibly exhausting as I worked so hard to do it.

But... in 2023, we saw that the hardest times we were having were economic issues, not Tighten issues. And by mid-2023, the team was fully-booked, overbooked, and growing. And we're taking that same energy and hope into 2024.

Personal
I've waffled back and forth with self-care this year, like most years. The more intense things get, the more likely I am to fail to make space for my workouts, my sleep, the time it takes to eat healthy.

But... I think this year I was able, very much with the help of my fianceé Imani, to finally start building in some practices for those self-care steps that are helping me slowly build them in even when work and parenthood are demanding my all.

I'm not there yet. But I feel so hopeful for 2024.

Family
My kids are doing great. They've had some tough times this year, and gotten COVID and croup and all sorts of other sicknesses young kids are prone to get. And some days I wanted to just send them to their rooms for an entire day.

But... they're amazing. They're lovely. They're unique and talented and fun and creative and sweet and funky and I love them so much. I wouldn't trade them for anything.

And that leads me to my highlight of 2023.

Imani
In 2022, I was two years out from a divorce, still getting a handle on my mental health and pretty sure I'd never be in a longterm relationship again.

But... I met this woman. This brilliant, talented, hilarious, empathetic, hopeful, kind, challenging, inspiring woman. Who also was not looking for a longterm relationship. But we had so much fun together. We were so well aligned on so many things. And no matter what happened to us, no matter what we went through, we found we would rather go through it together. We were, in fact, better going through it together.

So in 2023 I lived so many incredible pieces of life with her. We traveled, we took care of kids, we explored, cooked, nested, created, and so much more. And, late in the year, we decided to get married, February 2024.

So... I can't look back on 2023 with frustration or upset. Some of the best things that have happened in my life happened this year. And all of those good things, to me, look to be leading to even better in 2024.

As always... when I reflect on all these good things, I hope you also have had an incredible–even if challenging–year. I hope you are looking at 2024 with the same hope I am. I hope the next few weeks are able to restore you and reconnect you to yourself, your family, your hope, and your joy.

What Else?

• Working on http://builtforpulse.com w/ @aarondfrancis
  has been such a treat! If you didn't know, Aaron built its first pages *on* Pulse, so I've had to get to know Pulse very intimately to build non-dashboard pages in a Pulse-powered app. So, so, impressed with how this is built.(Tweet)
• Three years later... Is there any tool an entire team can use to standardize their Tailwind class ordering that: - Works in Laravel's Blade - Works even if you're on different editors (we have VS Code, Sublime, and PHPStorm) - (bonus) keeps to Tailwind's official styling (Tweet with repost)

That's it for now!

Until next time...

Your friend,
Matt Stauffer