January 6th, 2026
A reflection on loss.
I am an API Detective. 🔍 Bring me on for your worst API projects: whether it's an integration gone awry, documentation done dirty, or a versioning upgrade that has your app lost at sea. I can help you untangle your backend murder mysteries. You can hire me per project through my agency, Another Angle Solutions. 🕵️♀️
You can count on me to punch through technical hardships, articulate unruly processes, and actually get the work done. I'm known for making complex processes easier to understand through writing and teaching. As an educator, I've hosted events and created courses. I also leave confidence in my wake, and have onboarded new employees in most of my prior roles as part of how I show up to serve.
In my mind, there was an eloquent message to share for the new year. Reach for your goals, learn something new, do it even when it isn't perfect; something inspirational that resonates with other mid-career folks, you know?
Today, I don't have those kind of words to offer.
Yesterday morning, my family learned that a childhood friend of my daughter passed away in a car accident. This sweet, smart, young person is now gone, and for no particularly justified reason.
Our family is hurting, and yet I know their family hurts more. I don't know what I can do to help in this moment; my role appears to be guiding my daughter through her first true grieving of a lost beloved, someone she knew since she was a baby. Someone she grew alongside, enjoyed birthday parties, and had many years of memories with.
I don't have answers, but I do have actions to try. We'll honor her friend today and into the future. We'll remember the good. I will push to focus on the good.
What I don't know is what to do with my anger. I'm writing here as one way to help it dissipate. So many systems failed this little one, and the one responsible for the accident also perished with it. Where can we direct absolute and righteous rage? Was it really an accident? How dare they take an innocent along with them?
I know these hateful feelings are overriding the logic of today. The truth is, there is nothing that will bring back those gone too soon. There is also no one to blame, to take the target of this shotgun of hate that builds up every time I remember. I remember this fact, that they are gone, right after I wake up. They are absolutely gone, and there is nothing that reverses this logic.
There is a senselessness and chaos in our world that I still don't know how to make peace with.
Perhaps we'll all find a better way to do so in 2026.
