Life Sometimes Comes at You Fast

If the past year taught us anything, it is that life rarely delivers its challenges one at a time. Instead, it has a habit of introducing them at an unplanned pace; before there is time to fully process one event, another arrives demanding attention.

Anyone who has spent time in technology might recognize the pattern. It feels less like a tidy queue of tasks and more like an interrupt-driven system where priorities constantly shift and context switching becomes unavoidable. One thing begins to demand attention, then another signal arrives that requires immediate focus, and suddenly the mental stack is deeper than expected.

Last year was an emotional rollercoaster in ways we never quite expected. If I am being honest, I probably cried more during that year than I did in the previous forty combined. Some moments were deeply personal, others were frustrating or surreal, and several arrived at the exact worst possible time.

Looking back now, however, the chaos itself is not what stands out the most. What stands out is the foundation that carried us through it.

Saying Goodbye

Several months later, in August, my dad passed away.

When I arrived to see him, he had not been awake for a couple of days. The room was quiet in that particular way hospital rooms tend to be; machines beeped rhythmically and time seemed to move a little slower than usual.

I sat with him for a while.

At one point messages went out to a few close friends to let them know he was not doing well. It felt strange sending messages like that, as if putting the words into writing somehow made the moment more real.

Multiple times while sitting there, it looked like his hand moved slightly. Almost like a small wave.

If you knew my dad, that would have been completely on brand. He was never one for fuss. Even in difficult moments his style was always something closer to "don't make a big deal about it."

We ended up writing his obituary and eulogy, something none of us expected to do but felt incredibly important to get right. I leaned heavily on one of the unexpected tools of modern life, an AI language model, to help organize thoughts and shape sentences when emotions made it difficult to find the right words. The writing itself became a collaborative effort between me, my aunt, and my mom, with the final draft shared with three members of my inner circle -- two of my closest friends and my brother, my father's other son, for feedback.

The memoriam page that came out of that process has become the most permanent way I know to honor and remember my father; I've memorialized it here: /memoriam/taylor

It remains one of the hardest things we have ever had to write. It also carries a certain finality that few other pieces of writing ever do.

When Stability Shifts

Earlier in the year, stability had already shifted in a way we had not anticipated.

After nearly fifteen years with a company I cared deeply about, and now almost a year to the day later looking back, I was part of a reduction in force in March. I had spent years building systems, teams, and solutions that I believed genuinely helped the organization succeed.

Ironically, part of the reasoning that surfaced during that process was that I had moved toward doing more management and less of the "hard" development work.

The reality was almost the opposite. Much of my time had been spent doing the difficult work that very few people in the organization could handle; complex development tasks, architectural decisions, and the kinds of problems that tend to land on a desk when nobody else quite knows how to solve them. Looking back now and seeing parts of that software and website slowly hide or remove the application functionality that once existed has been genuinely heartbreaking.

Anyone who has worked long enough in technology knows how strange these moments can feel. Work you poured years into can disappear quickly once priorities change, budgets tighten, or leadership shifts.

Because of the separation agreement involved, I cannot say much about the company itself. That is part of the deal.

Even so, it has been difficult watching pieces of work that represented years of effort slowly disappear in the name of cost reductions.

On top of that, legal help was required just to resolve things like final compensation and accrued PTO that should have been straightforward.

More than anything, it was a heavy moment because I am the sole provider for our family. The ground suddenly felt a little less stable than it had the week before.

When Advocacy Becomes Necessary

At the same time, our family had another important fight on our hands.

Our son has learning disabilities and severe food allergies, and we had reached a point where his existing 504 plan simply was not providing the support he needed at school.

Anyone who has navigated the educational support system for students with learning differences knows that the process can be complicated. Sometimes advocacy means uncomfortable conversations and pushing harder than you would prefer.

Ultimately we decided to retain legal support to help move toward a comprehensive IEP plan.

Doing that while unemployed was not exactly ideal timing, but some decisions are about what is right rather than what is convenient.

When Neighborhood Drama Goes Social

Because apparently the universe was not done with us yet, we also found ourselves dealing with a hostile neighbor situation that escalated into a restraining order filed against my wife.

It sounds absurd even writing it out, but the situation was every bit as stressful as it might sound.

We hired an attorney, prepared our case, and eventually prevailed when the individual failed to show up for the second hearing. The timing, however, was surreal; our first court appearance landed during the same week my father passed away while I was hundreds of miles away helping coordinate the funeral.

Thankfully we had strong legal representation who handled things while I was away.

Even writing this now, the sequence of events reads more like something from a television drama than a normal year of life.

Families in Transition

Layered on top of everything else, both sides of our family were also navigating major transitions.

My mother downsized from the home she and my dad had lived in for years, and my in-laws moved into a retirement community.

Both were good decisions in the long run; they were also significant life changes happening during an already turbulent season.

The Foundation Matters

Looking back on that stretch of time brings to mind the old parable about the house built on rock versus the one built on shifting sand.

Storms do not politely check whether your schedule is clear before they arrive. They simply show up.

The difference is not whether the storm comes; the difference is what kind of foundation sits underneath when it does.

In our case, that foundation came from several places that had been built slowly over time. A strong marriage and family bond provided emotional stability when everything else felt uncertain; an emergency fund, built patiently over many years, created breathing room when income suddenly stopped; and friends showed up in quiet but meaningful ways during difficult moments. None of those things felt dramatic while they were being built, but together they created the stability needed when the storm arrived.

Another family without those pieces might have struggled far more than we did.

We were fortunate.

The Quiet Lessons

If there is one lesson from the past year, it is that the things that matter most are often the ones that feel the least exciting while you are building them.

Saving money instead of spending it.

Investing in relationships.

Doing the steady, sometimes invisible work that strengthens your foundation.

Those choices rarely feel dramatic at the time.

But when life suddenly comes at you fast, they can make all the difference.

Sometimes they are the reason the house is still standing when the storm finally passes.